WHAT DID YOU PUT ON?...first 10 songs after hearing EVH RIP...

[Rikk]

I was completely shocked and floored yesterday, even though I knew it was coming. I haven't been feeling great...so, I didn't get the news until it was a few hours old (texts kept coming, I finally checked).

The first 10 songs I listened to...

1) 1984 - It was my first VH album...I was 8. This piece always makes me think of Eddie with a smoke and drink on his keyboard in 5150 in the middle of the night.
2) JUMP - My first VH song...it changed my life. It's still pure magic to me.
3) COULD THIS BE MAGIC? - "Edward...thank you." Yes, thank you. This song is my campfire special. I love it so much. "Could this turn tragic? You know that magic often does."
4) ME WISE MAGIC - I'll never forget the goose-bumps I got when I first heard this...bittersweet as the experience was. The only problem with it is I still feel the rage I felt towards Eddie for screwing this up. The reunion would never be as magical again. I was half-as-excited when it finally happened 11 years later.
5) LET'S GET ROCKIN' - I love the version on ADKOT (OUTTA SPACE), but this is still the best version. So...young. Eddie's solo is supreme.
6) LIGHT UP THE SKY - This song makes me see stars. Eddie (and Alex) are so great...hell, Dave is amazing. And I love Mike's little "bum-buh da be da bum..." basslines in the soft part leading up to Eddie's fantastic solo from outta space.
7) GIRL GONE BAD - The breakdown in the middle...the weird chords...Dave's vocals...Eddie soloing like a madman. One of their most under-rated songs.
8) UNCHAINED - Just because. One of the greatest songs ever.
9) YOU AND YOUR BLUES - I couldn't sleep last night. I got up in the middle of the night, went over to my iTunes and put this on. Twice. It was keeping me awake...those harmonies. I love it.
10) HUMANS BEING - Yes...one Van Hagar song. I loved it then. I love it now. Easily the best song they did with him and maybe the only thing they did that approached their truly glorious days. Plus, they jam for like three minutes in the middle without Hagar singing a note.

I'm so fucking sad. I just can't believe this. It's not the pain of losing my son or anything...but it definitely has hit me like a ton of titanium bricks.

Goodbye, Eddie. I love you. You changed my life.

[TJMKID]

Not sure if I listened to 10 songs but I immediately went to my favs:

1) Drop Dead Legs --- such a tasty intro, very subtle and sexy at first but soon enough becomes a pussy-pounding anthem for the ages
2) Feel Your Love Tonight --- seems like the perfect summer song ... "see you walkin' down my road, tell ya honey you're the prettiest girl I know" ... reminds me of girls I never got in the sack but wanted to
3) Somebody Get Me a Doctor --- so much unbridled rage in this song ... I play it really loud when I'm pissed off
4) Little Guitars --- doesnt even need vocals or bass --- just guitar and drums and it's a masterpiece
5) Aint Talkin' Bout Love --- still the baddest motherfuckin' riff invented by any human being --- I will take that to my grave
6) 5150 --- one of the few Van Hagar tunes that really holds up, mostly because it's like Little Guitars for me --- doesnt really need vocals because it's so good as an instrumental piece
7) Me Wise Magic --- mostly for the nostalgia --- I was literally creamin' my undies in Sept. 1996 thinking Dave was back in --- that tour would've sold out soccer stadiums
8) Jump --- it's the most commercial and well-known song to "non-VH fans" --- sorry but it will always be their signature hit tune --- best video ever made by the band
9) In A Simple Rhyme --- coolest lyric of any rock song "well aint life grand when you finally hit it, I'm always a sucker for a real good time" --- that is the pure essence of Roth-VH
10) Dance the Night Away --- still their best sing-along song and I found out after many years it's probably the favorite VH song of any female fan

RIP, King Edward --- you affected millions of people in positive ways --- very few humans have that kind of vast power and influence on a whole generation

[Rikk]

Not sure if I listened to 10 songs but I immediately went to my favs:

1) Drop Dead Legs --- such a tasty intro, very subtle and sexy at first but soon enough becomes a pussy-pounding anthem for the ages
2) Feel Your Love Tonight --- seems like the perfect summer song ... "see you walkin' down my road, tell ya honey you're the prettiest girl I know" ... reminds me of girls I never got in the sack but wanted to
3) Somebody Get Me a Doctor --- so much unbridled rage in this song ... I play it really loud when I'm pissed off
4) Little Guitars --- doesnt even need vocals or bass --- just guitar and drums and it's a masterpiece
5) Aint Talkin' Bout Love --- still the baddest motherfuckin' riff invented by any human being --- I will take that to my grave
6) 5150 --- one of the few Van Hagar tunes that really holds up, mostly because it's like Little Guitars for me --- doesnt really need vocals because it's so good as an instrumental piece
7) Me Wise Magic --- mostly for the nostalgia --- I was literally creamin' my undies in Sept. 1996 thinking Dave was back in --- that tour would've sold out soccer stadiums
8) Jump --- it's the most commercial and well-known song to "non-VH fans" --- sorry but it will always be their signature hit tune --- best video ever made by the band
9) In A Simple Rhyme --- coolest lyric of any rock song "well aint life grand when you finally hit it, I'm always a sucker for a real good time" --- that is the pure essence of Roth-VH
10) Dance the Night Away --- still their best sing-along song and I found out after many years it's probably the favorite VH song of any female fan

RIP, King Edward --- you affected millions of people in positive ways --- very few humans have that kind of vast power and influence on a whole generation

Nice list! Funny...you're so right about DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY. THAT was the VH song my wife and I chose to play at our wedding. And it's her favorite. I love it too.

IN A SIMPLE RHYME. I also played that yesterday. Twice. And SECRETS. And, without knowing what was coming, I blared LITTLE GUITARS in my house while making dinner last week. I love that song so much. Especially the guitar. It's perfect.

[TJMKID]

Funny...you're so right about DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY. THAT was the VH song my wife and I chose to play at our wedding. And it's her favorite. I love it too.

I've always been surprised that VH had as many female fans as they did during the Roth years. Some of those songs mocked or belittled the feminine psyche --- "Jamie's Cryin", "Aint Talking Bout Love", and "Dirty Movies" are all slut-shaming songs in some form or another. Why would a girl in 1978 wanna listen to macho bragging stuff when she can chill out with Stevie Nicks singing about "players only love you when they're playing"? Maybe I'm trying to use a 2020 cultural lens on lyrics that should only be viewed from a late 70's perspective. I just find it a little weird and amusing that teenage girls were pumpin' their fist at the end of ATBL and affirming Dave's need to tell a clingy chick that he was only out to "hit it and quit it" with her.

There is no doubt in my mind that VH would've been Bon Jovi if they created more songs like "Dance the Night Away" during the DLR years. Their fanbase would've been 50% female from Day One.

[Funkmonkey]

Maybe I'm trying to use a 2020 cultural lens

Yes, you are.

[riggodrill44]

I'm the One
Feel Your Love Tonight
Little Dreamer
Somebody Get Me A Doctor
Light Up the Sky
In a Simple Rhyme
Mean Street
Unchained
So This Is Love?
Girl Gone Bad

[Terry]

The odd thing is...I haven't listened to any Van Halen since Ed died other than the barrage of terrestrial radio tracks I heard the day he passed while I was driving.

And not because I have been too upset to even listen to Van Halen. More along the lines of over the last decade the bands I have overlistened to - or listened too much to - for decades now I tend to go long stretches without actively listening to them. Possibly because I don't want to get sick of them. In part because I have listened to them so much for so long I don't even NEED to physically listen to them much anymore: the music is burned into my memory.

I was thinking of digging out an old bootlegged cd transfer of Van Halen live at Magic Mountain (the amusement park where KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK was filmed) in 1977, recorded at a gig a couple months before the first album was released. One of my more favorite CVH boots. Decent sound for a bootleg. A good chunk of the first album is on there. The band was in top form.

[My reaction to Ed's passing] has been sort of a similar reaction to the one I had when David Bowie, Tom Petty and Prince passed. Similar not so much in terms my own level of appreciation for what Ed did vs. the other three (I liked Bowie, Petty and Prince, but wasn't much more of what one could call a casual fan of Bowie and Petty), but in that I didn't start listening to those other three guys more than I had been right after they passed away, either.

[Terry]

None of this means I belittle someone else for feeling worse about Ed's passing or listening to the music more, or whatever.

I can remember spending hour after hour in the early 1980s listening to Van Halen, trying to learn what Eddie was doing and how to play guitar like him.

It doesn't...I don't even feel bad on a selfish level as a fan in terms of how some Beatle fans felt after John Lennon was shot, re: now there will never be a Beatles reunion. Like, I'm not even bummed that now there will never be a CVH reunion. I could understand why Beatles fans would have wanted to see a Beatles reunion in that the music meant that much to them. I felt the same way about Van Halen. I guess the difference is that The Beatles reunion was still a viable prospect in theory up until Lennon was shot. For me, I stopped wanting to see a CVH reunion by the time the ADKOT tour concluded.

Some of it was just...I mean, the last twenty years of Van Halen...it was barely a band. A lot of years of silence, then bursts of activity but most of that was involving performing old material. Public bitching about and from ex-members. It didn't quite recapture the spirit of the CVH era for me. When the music and the vibe (whatever was going on behind the scenes between band members) was positive and energetic.

[Rikk]

None of this means I belittle someone else for feeling worse about Ed's passing or listening to the music more, or whatever.

I can remember spending hour after hour in the early 1980s listening to Van Halen, trying to learn what Eddie was doing and how to play guitar like him.

It doesn't...I don't even feel bad on a selfish level as a fan in terms of how some Beatle fans felt after John Lennon was shot, re: now there will never be a Beatles reunion. Like, I'm not even bummed that now there will never be a CVH reunion. I could understand why Beatles fans would have wanted to see a Beatles reunion in that the music meant that much to them. I felt the same way about Van Halen. I guess the difference is that The Beatles reunion was still a viable prospect in theory up until Lennon was shot. For me, I stopped wanting to see a CVH reunion by the time the ADKOT tour concluded.

Some of it was just...I mean, the last twenty years of Van Halen...it was barely a band. A lot of years of silence, then bursts of activity but most of that was involving performing old material. Public bitching about and from ex-members. It didn't quite recapture the spirit of the CVH era for me. When the music and the vibe (whatever was going on behind the scenes between band members) was positive and energetic.

I hear you. I understand.

I've been reading Noel Monk's book the last couple of days...and let me just say: It depressed the hell out of me. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails in the way I used to think of what classic Van Halen really was...

...they were, from Day One, such a fucking disfunctional band. And to the very end, that never changed.

[Terry]

I hear you. I understand.

I've been reading Noel Monk's book the last couple of days...and let me just say: It depressed the hell out of me. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails in the way I used to think of what classic Van Halen really was...

...they were, from Day One, such a fucking disfunctional band. And to the very end, that never changed.

I mean, when the band split in 1985, I was bummed. It felt like there was still more great music to come.

After the split, when the band members started going public with how dysfunctional the band had been from the get-go in terms of personal relationships between one another (and Monk's book obviously put all of that into sharper focus than we as fans might have even imagined) - and then over the years you got things leaking out like Ed's 1982 unpublished telephone interview where he explicitly says he has little to no respect for Mike Anthony's contributions - all of this gradually shifted my own impression of the 1985 split. I started to feel it was more a case of it being amazing the band lasted as long as they did in the first place, rather than thinking they broke up too soon. That as a fan I was lucky enough to have gotten what I did in terms of the music, considering the volatility of the chemistry within the band.

With Ed's passing, I have feelings along similar lines. I don't know the specifics of his various medical ailments beyond what was made public. Nor am I a doctor. But from the early 2000s to 2007, Ed just looked physically dreadful. And come 2004 the guy couldn't even perform consistently well live anymore. Come 2006 it looked like Ed was gonna drop dead at any moment. So, while I was kinda bummed that a full CVH reunion never happened, all things considered it was kinda amazing that Ed managed to get himself sorted out enough to do the three tours with Dave that he did, regain his focus and apply himself enough to come ADKOT time he was able to perform the CVH material live at a professional level consistently well. To be sure, this doesn't seem like it would be asking too much from the perspective of a paying fan, but considering what Ed had been through (or put himself through, if one is inclined to have that view), it was more amazing that we got what we got...rather than lamenting what we didn't get (a full-on CVH reunion and an album or two of kick-ass new material).

But, yeah, there wasn't as much positivity surrounding Van Halen's activities from 1996 to the end as there seemingly had been during the CVH heyday. Even if the positive image of CVH was in no small part an image, what the band and their music meant to me WAS positive.

[Rikk]

I mean, when the band split in 1985, I was bummed. It felt like there was still more great music to come.

After the split, when the band members started going public with how dysfunctional the band had been from the get-go in terms of personal relationships between one another (and Monk's book obviously put all of that into sharper focus than we as fans might have even imagined) - and then over the years you got things leaking out like Ed's 1982 unpublished telephone interview where he explicitly says he has little to no respect for Mike Anthony's contributions - all of this gradually shifted my own impression of the 1985 split. I started to feel it was more a case of it being amazing the band lasted as long as they did in the first place, rather than thinking they broke up too soon. That as a fan I was lucky enough to have gotten what I did in terms of the music, considering the volatility of the chemistry within the band.

With Ed's passing, I have feelings along similar lines. I don't know the specifics of his various medical ailments beyond what was made public. Nor am I a doctor. But from the early 2000s to 2007, Ed just looked physically dreadful. And come 2004 the guy couldn't even perform consistently well live anymore. Come 2006 it looked like Ed was gonna drop dead at any moment. So, while I was kinda bummed that a full CVH reunion never happened, all things considered it was kinda amazing that Ed managed to get himself sorted out enough to do the three tours with Dave that he did, regain his focus and apply himself enough to come ADKOT time he was able to perform the CVH material live at a professional level consistently well. To be sure, this doesn't seem like it would be asking too much from the perspective of a paying fan, but considering what Ed had been through (or put himself through, if one is inclined to have that view), it was more amazing that we got what we got...rather than lamenting what we didn't get (a full-on CVH reunion and an album or two of kick-ass new material).

But, yeah, there wasn't as much positivity surrounding Van Halen's activities from 1996 to the end as there seemingly had been during the CVH heyday. Even if the positive image of CVH was in no small part an image, what the band and their music meant to me WAS positive.

Perfect post.

The one thing that can never change is how perfect and positive this music was. Nothing takes away from how great those six albums are (and I know I'm not necessarily in the majority here, but I actually consider it a seven-pack: I love ADKOT that much...Dave and Eddie are both just amazing and the rhythm section is great...it just needs a remix).

[Matt White]

Looking over my list from that dreadful day...

1.) "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?"---1st track on the 1st VH release that I bought on the day it was released. Will always have a special place in my heart.
2.) "Unchained"---Told myself that ugly October 6th that I was finally going to learn to play my favorite VH tune "Front to Back"...12 days & still learning
3.)"All the Cradle Will Rock"---1980. 6th grade. Monument song & record in my life. I've been coping licks from this solo as long as I've been playing guitar...which has been a long time.
4.)"Hear About It Later"---Great lyrics, riffs, and solo. The breakdown is (to quote our beloved brother MAX) STELLAR
5.)"House of Pain"---Another VH classic that I'm determined to get under my fingers...just a barn-burner!
6.)"Can't Get This Stuff No More"---makes me sad that 1996 was such a blown opportunity to get it right. "...you serve up the truth, "I don't want it anymore." Keep that in mind when we say goodbye, cus you can't get this stuff, no more."
7.)"Dance the Night Away"---Van Halen at their most "Pop" during the CLASSIC years. Sexier than Hagar's entire career...every song combined.
8.)"Eruption"---Ground zero for Generation X guitar players. King Edward dropped the bomb announcing himself as THE Guitar hero of the 1980's....in 1978.
9.)"Hang 'Em High"---Another GEM from Diver Down. Incredibly cool riff matched to brilliant lyrics about the old (not so old in '82) Clint Eastwood western. "...His pair of nitrous eyes"
10.)"Big River"---My favorite cut from ADKOT. Classic VAN HALEN...just wish it had Mike's vocals in the mix.
*BONUS*
11.)"Blood & Fire"---a close 2nd for my fav tune from ADKOT...I remember seeing them live in '07 in DETROIT and thinking...(say this in the ROCK's voice like I do in my head) "FINALLY....VAN HALEN SOUNDS LIKE VAN FUCKING HALEN AGAIN!!!"

[Seshmeister]

11.)"Blood & Fire"---a close 2nd for my fav tune from ADKOT...

My favorite, surprised they never played it live.

[Matt White]

My favorite, surprised they never played it live.

Has the trademark Roth humor...and lets the "Old School" fans know just how jazzed he was to actually be BACK

"Forgotten empires
Lost victories long past
Every time I bloomed again
I thought it was the last
And then something crazy happens
And boom!
I'm doing the victory dance!
Told ya I was comin' back
(Told ya!)
Say you missed me
(Say it!)
Say it like ya mean it!"

[Seshmeister]

Great solo too.

I think the best part of the album is that middle section - people go on all the time about it just being an album of reworked demos but that song #3-#8 section is mainly new stuff. Ok Blood and Fire was the Ripley thing but try to imagine taking that music and turning it into that song, it's not easy.

Also in the old days that would have been a whole Van Halen album with a cover version and an instrumental to pad it out.