The 1979 song Eddie Van Halen said the rest of Van Halen hated: “I played it for the guy”
Every rock and roll band will have their fair share of filler songs.
Even though every artist tries to give 100% whenever they walk into the studio, no one is prone to off days, and some of the greatest artists in history have had their best moments standing alongside the dogs of their catalogue on the same record. Although Eddie Van Halen always tried to put as much passion into every Van Halen song, not everyone felt the same way when making the track ‘Dance the Night Away’.
Then again, the band already had a looming question hanging over their heads when they went back into the studio…how the hell were they going to top their debut? Outside of being one of the best albums of the 1970s, the band’s 1978 self-titled album introduced them to the world with some of the greatest material of their career, featuring Eddie’s guitar showcase ‘Eruption’.
By the time they returned to the studio, no one had much time to recuperate from the tour. Instead of slaving away on new songs that they could spend time on, many of the band’s new material consisted of old demos that they had been working on back when they were cutting songs with Kiss’ Gene Simmons at the helm.
Compared to their debut, Van Halen II still has its own unique identity. Although the album starts off with a killer cover version of Linda Ronstadt’s ‘You’re No Good’, the shining moments on the record are where the band flirts with other styles of music, with Eddie breaking out the acoustic for ‘Spanish Fly’ and making the closest thing to Southern rock that they ever made on ‘Beautiful Girls’.
That willingness to experiment is part of what kept Van Halen from becoming a one-note act. Even if not every idea landed with the band immediately, pushing into different styles helped them avoid simply rehashing the formula that made their debut such a success.
It also highlights the internal push and pull that often defines great bands. What one member sees as a throwaway idea can end up being the track that connects with a wider audience, proving that sometimes the songs that feel the least essential in the studio end up having the longest life outside of it.
Outside of the usual Van Halen fodder, ‘Dance the Night Away’ was the perfect pop song for them to overtake the charts. Featuring Eddie’s trademark tapping techniques hammering out the guitar solo, much of the song wouldn’t feel out of place next to the power pop legends of the world like The Cars or Cheap Trick. The odds were stacked in their favour…too bad the rest of the band didn’t have time for it.
When Eddie talked about showing the song to the band, he remembered that the rest of the band had to be convinced to make something out of it, recalling to Guitar World, “I had the basic riff, and I played it for the guys before we went into the studio, and they didn’t like it. But then I played it for Ted [Templeman], and he really dug it, so we worked on it and put it together in the studio”.
Aside from being an outstanding piece of pop-rock, the dance angle of the song probably did the band a few favours with the disco crowd as well. Even if they were never going to be seen in any disco clubs at the time, creating a mindless song about cutting loose on the dancefloor helped remind everyone that Van Halen was about having fun just as much as they were about the heavy riffs.
Even though the single didn’t gain that much traction on the charts, it would become a fan favourite for years to come, showing the alternate universe where Van Halen decided to embrace their pop tendencies. The band didn’t have time to linger on it, though. They were already halfway towards making the heaviest album of their career, Women and Children First.
