The one Van Halen song Sammy Hagar “kind of regrets”
Rock and roll has never been known to be the most politically correct genre in the world. There are often times when artists like to cross the line a little too much, and while many people like to dress things up in innuendo, even bands like Van Halen could realise when they were going too far with what they could get away with.
Then again, Van Halen was never a band that had to deal with the heaviest lyrical concepts known to man. David Lee Roth was a brilliant wordsmith and had the gift of gab that most people would die for, but there were always going to be limits on his stuff when most of it was about having a good time. Sammy Hagar was no slouch in talking about that stuff, either, but there was a moment where something started to shift in their lyrical content around the time of 5150.
While this is not a bad qualifier by any stretch, this was the moment where Van Halen officially turned into a dad-rock band. That’s hardly a bad thing, but when you think about their career structure, hearing them talk about most grand topics and Hagar’s habit of reaching into the stratosphere for notes, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many potential fans are the type that now are clad in khaki shorts sitting around a grill these days.
That’s completely fine as long as the music still kicks ass, and in the case of 5150, the band came up with yet another flawless album. It was clear they were all having fun in the studio, but as soon as they hit the ground running again with OU812, there were pieces that either weren’t up to snuff or stuck out in the wrong ways. And that all comes from one simple fact: the album is bloated.
Despite only being 10 tracks, the album has a lot of songs that could have benefited from being trimmed down a little bit. ‘When It’s Love’ is still a phenomenal tune, and the band do get an opportunity to stretch out a little bit on songs like ‘Cabo Wabo’ or even the countrified ‘Finish What Ya Started’, but ‘Source of Infection’ is the one time where Hagar started to get a bit too goofy.
The riff Eddie brought to the table is definitely ready for primetime, but Hagar admitted that the lyrics were far too chauvinistic to take seriously, saying, “We made a joke out of that song. Eddie and I got a little liquored up in the studio and started goofing off. Alex was down on it, saying ‘You can’t do that’. It was a spoof on James Brown. But it was very politically incorrect, and personally, Eddie and I both kind of regret it. But it was a pretty badass piece of music.”
And considering the influx of bands that didn’t pick up on the joke of misogynistic lyrics at the time, this kind of song didn’t exactly help that conversation. ‘The Red Rocker’ wasn’t intending to be that kind of wordsmith anyway, but whenever someone’s at the studio and is banging their head against the wall trying to find the right lyric, even the most hideous things to write about can find a way to squeak by.
But at the very least, it’s nice to know that Hagar understood that the song was not going to hold up over time. Because if you look at some of the other heavyhitters from the time, there are also people like Gene Simmons who has continued to not get the joke of his own lyrics for years on end.
