Van Halen: Women and Children First (1980) Song by Song

I remember the very first time I read about Van Halen was in Creem magazine. This is before I had heard any of their music, and it said something about Eddie's playing philosophy being 'why play a few notes when a million will do'. Or something along those lines. I don't have the magazine to be able to check the context, but they could well have been making fun of him, which is funny because the effect it had on me was it made me think, 'that sounds great. I gotta hear that!'

 

You appear fairly preoccupied with this “too many notes” position in regards to EVH, and also appear to infer more notes means less emotion. I’m not quite sure I agree with you

 

I feel that a true "Immersion Edition" set for an album, would include access to individual tracks for each song. Truly.

 

It all depends... but that said, I am not a fan of speed metal. To me, it's notes for the sake of notes. But other dig it. So it's a preference, that's all.

 

FOOLS

Great tune an keeps it going on W&CF.

 

Fools

I wish the song proper would've started earlier, as the first minute and a half isn't really necessary. I'm not really a fan of the plodding, bluesy feel of this. It feels kind of messy overall. I know that's part of early-VH's style - to have this loose, chaotic style, but it doesn't really work on this song. If I didn't already know this was an older song, I would automatically assume it was just thrown together in the studio. The only thing that really sells it is Roth, even then it still feels like a jam.

After reading some of the comments for this one, it seems like I'm in a different place than most of you on this. Ah well.

 

ROMEO DELIGHT 1980 (E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth) (4:21)

At least one line of the demo “Get the Show on the Road” (I’m taking whiskey to the party tonight and I’m looking for somebody to squeeze, ain’t lookin’ for somebody to fight) appears on the last song of side 1 for Van Halen’s Women and Children First which is the oddly titled, "Romeo Delight". Though there are said to be other similarities in the melody of “Get the Show the Road” to “Romeo” I don't hear that much; maybe the ending a bit, but that’s about as far it goes. (I’ll post the demo below so people can listen for themselves). That said, the song does sounds like it could have been pulled from the first album pretty easily as it has the attitude and swagger of many of songs of that record. It’s a rousing, fast rocker that is not unlike songs like “I’m The One” or “On Fire” in terms of its overall vibe; the song seems inspired from earlier days, in other words.

Eddie starts out the song with some tapping instead of using a pick until Michael comes in with the bass line. Throughout much of the tune Anthony does a pulsing line that kind of resembled a heartbeat. You can hear Eddie at the end replicated the beat himself by taking his E string and pushing it against the pick up on his guitar (that’s where that tapping comes from at around the three minute mark). The song ends with a huge build up with Eddie going some ascending lines on the guitar that sounds like it’s climaxing (with the end shot provided by Anthony’s bass at the 4:16 mark).

Great bass work from Michael here and Alex is doing some great drumming on this (I especially like his hi hat work towards the beginning) with his choppy, aggressive approach.

When I saw Van Halen for their “Diver Down” tour in Dallas this is the song the band opened with and I remember distinctly that about halfway through it, David Lee Roth screamed “I forgot the F@#KING WORDS!!” which seemed kind of odd to me, but apparently, at some point during (or before) that tour he changed the second verse of the song. He apparently said the same thing months before at the US Festival, so this seems like it was typical Dave schtick rather than him actually not remembering the lines. (For all his crazy antics, Roth always seemed to the consummate showman; even going as far as drinking ice team from a Jack Daniels bottle onstage instead of the real thing). It's all about appearances, see?

Eddie’s ex-wife, Valerie Bertinelli, claimed in her book, that “Romeo Delight” is her favorite Van Halen song. The thrash metal band, Annihilator, has also covered the song on their self titled album from 2010.

 

"Get the Show on the Road" (demo) (1977)

 

I totally agree about the jammy nature of the song. I was always kind of under the impression, as well, that it was a song pieced together rather quickly for the WACF sessions. Regardless, the heavy, lumbering vibe works for me.

 

My favorite part of Fools is the last minute or so, after the last chorus when they switch from the main riff to the even simpler outro riff. The just keep hammering that riff over and over with Mike, Ed and Al totally locked in, DLR going completely mad with the scatting and there's all sorts of wild guitar overdubs. It's just so heavy!

 

Actually that's my second favorite. The best part of Fools is before the second verse where Dave goes " Oh! Yeah baby, how to say. Let me tell ya about this one time. How ya gonna tell me? Let put it to music! yeah, I say..."

 

That's the part, I guess, where I described Dave doing a Louis Armstrong type deal? Yeah, that's great!

 

This is almost punk-like. And by punk, I mean the Bouncing Souls. Again, nothing not to love in this song: guitar fills, the bass punctuation, ditto drums, Dave's David-mcdavidness, the backing vox harmony, the execution, ... Pure high school dork rowdiness. The bass during the solo is one of the best performances I've heard. The post solo bridge is a wonderful moment captured on tape (lead-in to 'feel my heart beat'). Eddie's wild runs. That wonderful MXR embellishment throughout. I wonderful if there is a better Side A in rock?

Remember what I said yesterday? Three songs in every song? The composition/structure of Romeo just amazes me, what they put together here. So many ideas and wonderful ties together. Not many bands pull off these types of dynamics and bring it all to such an in yer face resolution. Climatic ending, indeed.

 

How the heck did they tease Romeo out of that?!

 

I guess it's just the lifting of the one line. I don't hear much of anything else though another site said that "some of the melody from "Get the Show on the Road" was taken for "Romeo Delight". Not from what I can hear.

 

Romeo: 2:00-2:10, 2:23-2:33 worth the price of admission!

 

What is this? Can you show me where/how it's used? Like in a specific section of the song?

 

No, it's definitely the skeleton of Romeo, the intro drums/rhythm, the chord punctuations in the verse, some of the embellishments in the chorus, some of the stops, the solo is most of Romeo, the ending.

Btw, I could hear early Police doing this version. It has their frenetic pace, the laughable verse/chorus, the fast chop in/ chop out guitar approach.

 

Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima are two titans of music, in my world. (Well, Armstrong should be in anyone's world, as he's one of the more important figures in 20th century popular music). The fact that Roth brought their scat style to rock and roll was cool, and no doubt it was totally unique to the average, young rock and roll fan. Having grown up hearing that stuff, Roth's style wasn't quite as special to me as it was to others. It was a cool and unique source of inspiration for him, but frankly his finesse (if that's even the right word) with it pales in comparison to Armstrong and Prima. Still, it was another element in VH's sound that made them stand out.

 

BTW, where's @SizzleVonSizzleton?

After enduring my rantings and ravings on KISS for most of the year, I was happy to return the favor, and endure his rantings and ravings on Van Halen. C'mon, Sizzle, share the wealth!!

(Seriously, it's cool reading the thoughts of you guys who know way more about this band than I do!)

 

Honestly, I'm not even sure the Armstrong comparison is apt. I don't know much about this music other than a few songs. Dave just sounded a bit like him so I went with that. I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know who Louis Prima is ...

 

Sizzle has been MIA for over a week now. I hope he's okay.

 

The lyrics in this song are so great to start with.

like ..

"Wanna see my I.D.? Try to clip my wings!
Don't have to show you proof of anything
I know the law friend "


then you add the way he delivers them so it's like..

I know the laawww....friend

Come on! Dave is the best.

 

TheMXR phaser? It's on there in the guitar during "desperate woman, need a man with a gun" ( understated but Eddie uses that a lot). 0:51-54 is the phaser. 1:01-1:03.1:40-1:43. The solo 1:54-2:02. (Possibly on Alex's high-hats after the solo) . The MXR is about all he used. There's a funny interview with him on GP (his first cover, with the black/yellow) where he talks about how he hates effects ("is this thing on? What's it do?") but likes his venerable MXR 90, the orange one at that time.

Is there a solo track for Romeo?

 

No, you're correct. I'm quite sure Roth took a lot of inspiration from Armstrong. And he obviously did from Prima, because he covered "I Ain't Got Nobody/Just A Gigolo", even following Prima's arrangement of the two songs.

I know you're not as much into horns (at least I think that's correct), but you seriously need to check out some live footage of Prima's band in their heyday. I'll find some good examples and forward them to you. A musician friend of mine (who's tastes largely overlap with yours; you're probably a bit more into metal than he is, and he's more into blues than you are), after hearing a 2-CD compilation of Prima's music, exclaimed, "This is how the big boys do it!"