Who REALLY wrote the vocal melodies - Dave or Ed?

[dave_is_vh]

Who REALLY wrote the vocal melodies - Dave or Ed?

I was always under the impression that Ed wrote the music and Dave wrote the vocal melodies and lyrics.

But I recently read that Ed once adamantly told someone that Ed and only Ed wrote ALL of the vocal melodies.

What is the real story? Did Ed really write ALL of the vocal melodies?

[ELVIS]

Dude, nobody wrote anything...

EVH can barely write his own name...

Classic Van Halen was shaped and molded to perfection like fine clay...

Alex used to hate that Dave would come into the studio with nothing and start improvising shit on the spot...

But rest assured that David Lee Roth came up with the vast majority of, if not all of the seven pack's vocal attributes, including melodies and harmonies...

EVH is arguably the best rock guitarist who ever lived, but he's a piss poor historian...

So is his sister...

[sadaist]

I know Eddie changed the chorus from Dance Lolita Dance to Dance the Night Away. But other than a few minor suggestions here & there it was all Dave. That is clear by both of their work after 1985 and seeing who the cool lyrics & melodies went with.

[Seshmeister]

Dave clearly wrote the melodies which is the most important part of the song and why Van Halen with Hagar became a completely different band.

Ed liked to call that 'writing the lyrics' as a way to belittle Roth or whichever singer he was moaning about.

That said I'm pretty sure that Ed wrote the vocal melody to 'How Many Say I?' himself which tells you all you need to know...

[VHscraps]

Dave.

It's why Ed + Hagar sounded like ... Van Hagar.

[Seshmeister]

And Ed + Cherone sounded like shit...

[Cato]

Dave added the lyrics and melodies to Mike Hartman's instrumental tune "Stomp" and it became to "King Of The Hill".

this is his way to create his music I think?

[Seshmeister]

You only have to listen to Ripley and then Blood and Fire to see just how good Roth is at writing a vocal melody to music.

Or another example I give is imagine Jump but with the vocal melody following the keyboard line at the chorus and just how horrific that would be.

The producer on ADKOT John Shanks put it well.

As a musician, producer and songwriter, can you share some observations about their writing and recording processes?

I’ll use “Hot For Teacher” as an example of why Dave is great, because until people really get to know the new album, it’s hard to explain his magic. Think about “Hot For Teacher.” You have the big hammer-on intro, then you have the guitar part, then down to the John Lee Hooker kind of guitar part. Now, I’m guessing here that when Eddie came up with that, he probably assumed that’s where the verse would start. Most singers, when they hear that, would have started singing right there. Not Dave. What Dave does is, “What do you think the teacher’s going to look like this year,” and then it goes into another section and he starts the vocal. Again, most writers would have written that as the B section. Dave sees that as the verse. Dave goes over barre lines and looks at things completely originally, more than most songwriters.

The way I correlate Dave — there’s a similarity almost to the way Stevie Nicks writes. Stevie writes over barre lines and her verses continue over where you think they would go to this section, but they don’t. She’s like a poet. Stevie writes poems, and Dave writes in a very similar way, where he’s going over sections of songs so it’s not cookie-cutter. Analytically, when you break it down as a songwriter, the way Dave writes sometimes is outside the box, or as he says, it’s “off book.” He has these parameters, and he bends and morphs them to accommodate his ideas, not only melodically but lyrically as well. That’s hard to do, especially in a context of the material he’s working off of. It’s more beat poetry or jazz; it’s more that kind of thing. It’s more R&B.

Dave thinks outside of the box. To see that process was to see what he goes through to create that. He goes through his process trying to find melodies and counterpoints. What I came away with was the brilliance of Dave, which is like the brilliance of Eddie, but in a completely different way, but they complement each other, and then the brilliance of Alex and Wolf. You’ve got to give Wolf credit to walk in there and be the new guy in the band. I’m really proud of Wolf. He’s a badass and he’s a great player. He’s a musicologist and he’s a historian in regards to the band, too, suggesting, “We should play this song,” We should play that song,” “The fans want to hear that.” He’s really amazing. And Alex is an unbelievable drummer.

There were times when we were tracking when I would watch — Eddie and Wolf play in the control room, so I’m sitting between the two of them, and through the glass we’re all watching Alex. They’re so locked in, there’s synchronicity, and you have Wolf now, so there’s this blood connection. There were definitely a couple of times when they were playing and they’re so in the zone and listening to each other so intensely that you get emotional because it’s so real. It was truly a thing to watch, to be a witness to, and to be part of. I’m grateful for that. And then adding Dave, it’s like the pieces of a puzzle that just fit together.

Dave is an artist. He’s like any great artist in the sense that when the motor is running and he’s in his zone, it’s pretty wild. He’s not the same person he was on 1984 or on his solo records. He walks in with these journals of writing. He has a plethora of lyrics that he filters down into their essence in order to put them on the song. This record showcases Eddie, Wolf and Alex, but it really showcases Dave in a different way than when he was younger. He’s in a different place in his life, so it’s a collective of what works for the way he sings now and the way he writes now. He’s bringing his life experiences to this. It’s a different time in his life, and his sarcasm and double entendres and wry sense of humor really come across on this record. It did in the past, but [for example] that “1-800 tell me, baby” [“The Trouble With Never”] was an ad-lib in the moment. It’s like an actor doing the same scene over and over, and every time, a great actor will tweak it and take it to the next level. Dave, when he’s in that place, will do that. It was wild to watch. Even in “Tattoo,” there’s that cool little ad lib before the last chorus, and the way he hits it was definitely in the moment and spontaneous. It wasn’t pre-planned. It was someone who’s on his game, present and working off the moment, and boom, that happens. He’s feeling the music. Some of those ad-libs and lyrical hooks he might have in his bag of tricks, but the way he applies them is what makes Dave “Diamond Dave.” It’s wild to see when he’s in his zone.



Read more: http://www.vhnd.com/2012/04/03/inter...#ixzz2WBIk1XFQ

[binnie]

Dave clearly wrote the melodies. No-one else could have, they're so idiosyncratic.

[DLR Bridge]

In a Guitar World from '85, Ed lauded Dave's ability to stick lyrics to just about anything he gave him. I can't quite imagine Ed, during the 6 pack times, ever saying "sing it like this". His absolute control freak streak kicked in probably somewhere around '95 when he first sobered up a bit and was no longer affraid to say to Sammy, "what is this shit??"

I wouldn't doubt that Ted helped Dave mold some of the delivery of certain lines or parts of songs. Producers do that. There's a fine line between being meddlesome and a creative assistant. For example, listen to the club days version of In A Simple Rhyme. Dave's all over the place (he was also quite new to the game). The recorded version released 5 or 6 years later was dramatically refined and melodic.

[VHscraps]

You only have to listen to Ripley and then Blood and Fire to see just how good Roth is at writing a vocal melody to music.

Or another example I give is imagine Jump but with the vocal melody following the keyboard line at the chorus and just how horrific that would be.

The producer on ADKOT John Shanks put it well.

Yeah, and if you listen to the mashump of Jump with John Lennon's 'Imagine' - i.e., with no Eddie music or VH rhythm track - it is clear that the lyrics and vocal melody on their own are pretty much a song.

Of course, I guess that Dave came up with that specifically to fit with Ed's music and the chord changes, verses, bridge etc - but it still gives you a good idea of what Dave brough to the table.

And, that reminds me - while people who rag on Dave's vocal abilities have often said Hagar was a "better singer" than Dave, on those occasions where Hagar sang Dave-era tunes, it seemed to me that he could not sing them throughout correctly in terms of the meldody. I don't think it was only a matter of him doing it half-assed, but more likely Dave-type melodies were pretty alien to his way of singing.

That's leaving aside the fact, if the evidence of the last tour is anything to go by, that Dave also seems to ave forgotten how to sing some of his own melodies, and approaches them as if they were stange tunes written by some other guy.

[DLR Bridge]

Good point about Simpleton Hagar. Since pairing with Satriani, he's gone on record as saying Ed couldn't write songs, only riffs and ideas, and while that may bs partially true, it is clear he had far less of a clue how to deal with melody making than Dave. Sammy's comfort zone is crap like Feels So Good. If Ed had handed him stuff like Sinner's Swing, he'd be completely lost.

[VetteLS5]

If Ed had handed him stuff like Sinner's Swing, he'd be completely lost.

Yeah, "the menace is loose again" isn't in the fat boy's lyrical playbook, for sure.

[ELVIS]

This is...

[ELVIS]

Hey, I'm kinda digging that song...