Van Halen - Van Halen II (1979) - Song by Song

This pretty much sums it up for me as well. Rising is a must read. Was disappointed with the Monk book but the old pictures were cool. Don’t waste your time with EWS, no bueno. Currently reading Dave’s book which is fascinating and about what you would expect from DLR

 

Light Up The Sky
VH go metal, with a terrific intro and a driving Motorhead-like riff. Neat.

Spanish Fly
A very nice interlude and the perfect lead-in to the next track.

 

If you're turning on Halen for poignant lyrics...you're missing the whole point.

 

Maybe when I'm a very old man and Wolfie has control of the archives we'll get some vintage shows. By then they'll be beaming music straight to our brain implants, so hearing loss won't be an issue.

 

Thanks for starting this thread, Jason. Unfortunately, work/life pace has kept me from committing to it - and the myriad other VH Six Pack threads - in the same fashion as the KISS Song-by-Song. Nevertheless, this has become my favorite all-around VH album to listen to complete. I actually like the broodier start of "You're No Good" and then it's off to the races. VHII is compact, hooky and, to my ears, dud free . "Somebody Get Me a Doctor," "Bottoms Up!," "D.O.A.," "Women In Love...," (gotta love the random punctuation in Classic VH titles ), and "Beautiful Girls" are all in or near my top 10 favorite VH songs. Then, in the midst of this tidal wave of top shelf rock songs, EVH delivers a quiet, supple solo on a nylon string guitar, completely with a tongue-in-cheek ("and he's not sayin' whose!") Dave title. So (rightfully) cocky and good these guys were in 1979, EVH could turn down from 11 to virtually 0 and still rock in an imitable-but-unduplicable way.

VHII, to me, is the best example of their "live in the studio" feel. They had a spectacular knack for it. And where it occurs to some extent on all of the DLR albums, it pervades this album. Even the vocalism asides and loose atmosphere on "Bottoms Up!" - which obviously was tracked separately - feels like they are playing onstage and just saunter up to the mic for a breakdown. DLR was the grandmaster of this spontaneity and it's something that I sorely miss in the Hagar years. Sometimes the edges are better not rounded off.

Add me to the list of people who feel Renoff's book is an essential read for Van Halen fans. It really is singular in explaining the VH Bros/DLR tension and how it was there from day one, arguably one of the greatest mixed blessings in rock history as it was both an accelerant in the early years and a millstone once they were Big Jaded Rock Stars With Coke Problems. The Neil Zlozower photo book is a nice-to-have, the closest thing to a single "you are there" photographic record.

 

D.O.A. 1979 (E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth) (4:12)

“D.O.A.” is one of Van Halen’s heavier tracks on Van Halen II. Combining with the second side opener, “Light Up The Sky”, it’s another song that lets you know that the band means business.

“D.O.A” meaning “Dead or Alive” (hence the chorus) as opposed to “Dead on Arrival” was a song that included on the Warner Bros. demos produced by Gene Simmons. The version on that was quite different than the version that is heard on II as the lyrics were different and, in some places, incomplete (which might have been why it wasn’t included on the first album).

Edward’s noisy, tremolo bar intro let’s you know this song is going to a banger and it certainly is. Edward plays a crunchy, staccato riff while intermittently throwing in some high licks; so kind of doing rhythm and lead simultaneously. As usual, Michael and Edward sing back up on the chorus, but they are as present on “D.O.A” as on other Van Halen tunes.

I think most that have read my threads know I don’t really pay attention to lyrics that much in a song. They’re certainly important to the song and I’d miss them if they weren’t there, but I know very few songs that I can sing along to. “D.O.A”, however, for whatever reason, is a song I do know. That said, I often get a few lines of the song wrong (for instance I always thought it was “I sent the man down in his pick up truck, but it’s “I sent the mayor down) but the gist of it is ingrained in my brain.

I like Roth’s delivery here very much as he moves from an almost whiney moan to that of huge bark towards the end. I always sing along to the “the jury look at me and say, “Outta Luck” giving a thumbs down and a finger across the throat for effect. The image of “a dirty face kid in a garbage can” is one that has always stuck with me, too, since hearing the song as a young kid.

Personally, I think this song is one of Edward’s best performances on guitar (I especially love the percussive picking he does throughout the tune and how he starts doing a saw sounding deal at the very ending). Michael Anthony throws in some good melodic bass lines in the tune as well. I like how at around 3:36 the band goes into double time to end it up with David’s patent yelps and the crunchy guitar I described above. Great song and has always been one of my favorites on an album full of classic tunes.

 

Here's a live version of it from 1979.

 

A solid heavy rocker with the expected VH flourishes. What’s not to like here? Great vox from Dave on this one “a dirty faced kid in a garbage can”. Love it.

 

Good doesn't have to mean poignant or deep. Just good.

 

Yeah, I was going to comment on this as well. I think a lot of Roth's lyrics are fairly poignant. They're certainly clever and not just your lock/stock dumb hard rock lyrics. I think David Lee Roth was kind inspired with a lot of his lyric writing. He's overlooked a bit in that dept. IMO

 

I would agree with that. Roth’s batting average was pretty good for the genre. Even his lyrical misfires tend to go down well thanks to the panache of his delivery.

 

"D.O.A." is a great one. Big chunky riff punctuated with pull-offs? Am I getting that right? Can you tell I'm not a guitar player? Whatever is going on, and whatever you call it, killer track.

As far as Dave's lyrics, I don't think he ever lost it. I love a lot of the lyrics on ADKOT. "Stay Frosty," hilarious yet full of wisdom. I also like his lyrics for "Tattoo, " "You And Your Blues" and "The Trouble With Never."

 

DOA
A great, simple rocker. Love that chunky riff and that stammering, mechanical outro. Terrific vocals from DLR.

That opening crunch is identical to the one on "Split Part Two" from the mighty Groundhogs (Split was the first LP that I ever bought back in 1971).

 

D.O.A.

"D.O.A." is my favorite Van Halen song. When this song plays, there is nothing else going on in the world except this HEAVY coming out of the speakers that's coming to kick my ass. That guitar riff is simply menacing, and for me, that riff singularly earns them "The Mighty Van Halen" title. Few songs ever grab and hold my attention like this.

Some of the most bad-ass music ever created. Simply perfect, start to finish.

 

D.O.A......just a monster of a song and easily one of my 5 favorite VH songs of all time.

 

D.O.A.
That ominous, bent first chord. The punk-sludge, caveman riff. AVH's down-the-stairs tom sequence. It all sets the tone. Dave is in full-fledged story mode here, complete with affected ungrammatical English. He even adds a sort of world-weary plaintiveness to the second "we was sittin' ducks for the po-lice ma-an" that implies the character is beaten down and exhausted from being - as he sings - "WANT-EE-YED." Then, to reinforce how "stuck" they are, the band grinds down into a repetitive did-my-needle-skip? churn under cover of Dave's banshee yodel. In short: So Cool.

The pre-solo high bass fills are scintillating and I like the different approaches Alex takes to the pre-pre-chorus tom fills.

I agree with @wavethatflag about Dave's lyrics. He has a very askew view of life and he can make the most mundane or prosaic subject matter (chasing girls, getting loaded) sound like, in turns, a hilarious or profound adventure. "She's The Woman" is peppered with some classic latter day Rothisms:

With a Chevy for my summer home
Let's get the party started
It's looking like the city towed
My other apartment

 

But that one dimension is an awesome one!

 

That one is particularly funny.

 

I always heard it as "but honey, if you need it, woman, just as bad as me".

But I could be wrong.

 

D.O.A-Big fan of this song. For some reason to me it feels like a cousin to "Fool's" in it's primal simplicity of the riff-and would fit right in on Women and Children First.

 

SOMEBODY GET ME A DOCTOR (E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, M. Anthony, D. Roth)

Oh my, what a great riff! Heavy, but there's a groove to it! Great guitar solo, worthy of the applause the band gave him during the song. Some interesting choices throughout, especially (as @GodShifter pointed out) the ascending lines from 1:37 to 1:49. Dave's performance is a good match to Eddie's - wild and dangerous but also having fun, like being invited to party that you know you probably shouldn't go to...but it's hard to resist.

But doing this exercise helps me really listen to Alex - and I like what he's doing here too. As @GodShifter said "the right amount of emphasis and support in the right places".

And to make this musical statement in less than 3 minutes? Who do you think you are, Chuck Berry or the Ramones?

9.8 out of 10.

 

I'm a spark on the horizon! This song is so full of great Dave moments. Broken down and dirty, dressed in raaaags - the way he drags that out. The Dead or Alive after the first chorus the way he hits that 'v' so hard. The previously mentioned 'outta luck' and 'police man' lines...and just a bunch more. Classic Daveness all over the place.

Eddie's great all over the song too of course but his best moment is near the end. That little thing he adds at 4:01. It's just so perfect

 

BOTTOMS UP! (E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth)
Jason's review is so spot-on, there's not too much I can add.

It is indeed a boogie, but I feel like when the solo starts at 1:18, I get a sci-fi feel (but not dated), almost like this sound is coming from a spaceship... and it seems like it wouldn't fit with the song, but it actually works.

And now for your Blues history lesson - all boogies were born from John Lee Hooker, who started this crazy rhythm in 1948. which is still making people move 70 years later. Take his Boogie Chillen and Boom Boom, and you basically have La Grange as well as everything Canned Heat ever did.



Nice change of pace after the crushing Doctor. 7.7 out of 10.

 

Boom Boom