The Van Halen songs that even Van Halen hated
By the end of the 1970s, it felt like the world needed a band like Van Halen. Rock and roll had either become too self-serious or too poppy for most casual fans to appreciate, and when Eddie came out of the woodwork playing those insane tapping licks, everyone found a new guitar hero. But even they had some songs that they would have rather forgotten.
Then again, talking about Van Halen’s hatred for their material also comes down to which version of the band that you’re listening to. Every David Lee Roth fan was bound to feel betrayed when Sammy Hagar was recruited to replace him, but even on their strongest albums, Eddie could find a few songs that he didn’t like or material that should have never seen the light of day to begin with.
When judging any of their songs, though, it’s hard to really see too many dents in the armour across their career. There might be albums like Van Halen III that no one wants to talk about, but even when they strike out a little bit on Balance or rush an album together like on Diver Down, there’s usually some great material to be found. But when that one horrid song comes across the setlist, it’s hard for many members not to take it personally whenever they put on a show.
The strangest part of it is that some members have been conspicuously quiet about their opinions on the songs. Although Alex Van Halen was more likely to go with his brother when it came to certain tunes, Michael Anthony always seemed happy to be there and crank out the tunes that he wanted. Any other bassist would have been tired of playing one note at the top of ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’, but even if Anthony had an ax to grind over certain songs, he has rarely shown it.
But looking at Roth, Hagar, and even Eddie, there were always going to be tunes that they absolutely despised one way or the other. Even if it doesn’t look like a band named after the guitar player should be a democracy, there had to be compromises made every now and again, and while everyone could roll over and make their way through one song, that didn’t mean they had to like it.
The Van Halen songs Van Halen hated:
David Lee Roth’s least favourite Van Halen songs
– ‘Jump’
– A Different Kind of Truth
From day one, David Lee Roth always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Van Halen brothers. The band only wanted him for his PA when they first got him in the group, so it wasn’t like they were judging him on his superior vocal skills or anything. But for someone that’s a natural ham like Roth was, he knew what did and didn’t work with his schtick, and it all started when keyboards were brought in.
According to Eddie, Roth was furious about them introducing pianos on 1984, and especially their lead single, ‘Jump’. Before the project even started, producer Ted Templeman had mentioned how much he hated the tune and how it took away from the rest of the record, and despite Roth being in his corner, Eddie was determined to have his way, eventually putting his foot down and demanding that it kick off the album.
While that creative difference led to Roth walking away for years, it’s not like those wounds couldn’t mend, either. Roth could take the high road when he wanted to, but when they finally started working on their first album in decades, ‘Diamond Dave’ was far from proud of the work he had done on A Different Kind of Truth.
It was a worthy comeback and a good way for the band to leave things on their own terms, but according to Eddie’s son, Wolfie, Roth is the reason why the album isn’t on streaming services these days, thinking that he didn’t do the best job at singing the tunes. Then again, a lot of the tracks were designed for a younger version of Roth, and even if he wasn’t in the best vocal shape, most people were happy to at least see him trying to crank them up.
Eddie and Alex Van Halen’s least favourite Van Halen songs
– ‘Dancing in the Street’
– ‘Top of the World’
– ‘Amsterdam’
But outside of Roth’s demands during both parts of their career, there wasn’t anything that would turn up on a Van Halen record that didn’t have Eddie’s seal of approval. He was the mastermind behind most of the riffs, and a lot of the best material on their records came from him, but when the worst thing that anyone could have done to him was try to come up with something under pressure.
Although Eddie did occasionally write songs as a piss take like ‘Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love’, Diver Down is the only album of the Roth era he really didn’t like. And while most of that has to do with the cover songs, the biggest victim of the album is ‘Dancing in the Street’, with Eddie claiming, “I was working on a great song with this riff that I envisioned being more like a Peter Gabriel song, but when Ted [Templeman] heard it, he decided it would be great for ‘Dancing in the Street’. Ted and Dave were happy, but I wasn’t.”
Compared to Roth, working with Hagar should have been a breath of fresh air, but even they had their ups and downs. Eddie did eventually get Hagar to change lyrics to songs like ‘Humans Being’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do’, he admitted that a song like ‘Top of the World’ wasn’t his favourite before being “outvoted” in the studio.
But if there was a “last straw” for Hagar’s songwriting, it was on the track ‘Amsterdam’. Van Halen have been known to write a few silly tunes every now and again, but Eddie felt that a tune all about getting baked in Amsterdam being played by two brothers that are from the Netherlands was too stupid for him to give it a pass. Even if it was Hagar’s attempt to loosen up and have some fun, it’s not like Hagar knocked it out of the park every single time, either.
Sammy Hagar’s least favourite Van Halen songs
– ‘Jump’
– ‘Source of Infection’
– ‘Between Us Two’ (unreleased)
First of all, Hagar was always going to have a problem with living in the shadow of David Lee Roth. He simply wasn’t that kind of frontman, and he wasn’t about to buy his own pair of assless chaps and strut across the stage. But he did need to acknowledge the past, and that meant going through a few Roth tunes that he never had that much passion for.
Even though Roth himself despised ‘Jump’ for a time, Hagar had more of a problem with Roth’s lyrics on the track. The piano was completely fine, but Hagar had issues with Roth’s lyrics, saying, “I didn’t want to sing the songs because I thought ‘Jump’ was a silly song. I didn’t like the lyrics and I had a hard time standing up there going, ‘Can’t you see me standing here / I got my back against the record machine / You know what I mean?’”
But even after 5150 established their footing as superstars, ‘Source of Infection’ was also a sore spot for Hagar. He was known for a few promiscuous lyrics like ‘Poundcake’, but hearing him trade lines back and forth with Eddie after a day of heavy drinking was never going to work, and he would later come to regret even putting out the song. Even if ‘Amsterdam’ wasn’t off limits, Hagar did have his own standards, but the biggest struggle he had came with a Van Halen song no one got to hear.
While ‘Humans Being’ is commonly referred to as the death of Van Halen, the real sore spots came from when Hagar started working on a song titled ‘Between Us Two’. The makings of a great song were there, but since Eddie ran off with producer Glen Ballard, ‘The Red Rocker’ figured that he was being sidelined, after which Eddie called him up to tell him that they would be moving in another direction.
