This was prepared (using material from a previous post) as a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), but is not part of that book's current blueprint.
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
The death of a popular performer can strike one in surprising ways. This can be true even when it's a performer you were never really into to begin with. Sudden, overdue perspective can strike from anywhere.
I was not a Van Halen fan. I mean no disrespect to VH fans when I say that, especially in the wake of the unexpected passing of Eddie Van Halen in 2020. When a performer dies, too many thoughtless would-be pundits are quick to puff and proclaim that they never understood what the fuss was about; that's rude, and I hope I'm not guilty of such boorish behavior.
Because I always loved "Dance The Night Away."
Yeah, I thought Van Halen butchered the cantankerous perfection of the Kinks' original "You Really Got Me," singer David Lee Roth tended to get on my nerves, and even Eddie Van Halen's note-heavy guitar style wasn't my cuppa. But I could see why folks liked them. Both "Jamie's Cryin'" and "Runnin' With The Devil" were first-rate rock tracks. A bit later, I was also okay with "Panama" and their appealingly meatball take on Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," found their version of "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" more palatable than their previous Kinks cover, and liked "Jump" the first half dozen times I heard it (if not the subsequent seventeen billion times). Oh! And a girl I knew told me she thought I looked like drummer Alex Van Halen. I thought that was ridiculous, but a smart teenage boy knows better than to disagree with a pretty teenage girl paying him a compliment.
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| Alex Van Halen; some young future blogger who is not Alex Van Halen |
And I was old enough to dance the night away.
"Dance The Night Away" transcends the discussion. When it was released in '79, my punk/power pop personality had already decided that Van Halen didn't fit into my rockin' pop cosmology. So I had to bend my rules to allow myself to dig "Dance The Night Away" anyway. It's no more silly in retrospect than it was in real time...because it was plenty silly in real time. I made excuses, and stumbled across the (true) notion that even the band you hate can be capable of one great song. I hated Styx, but I loved "Lorelei." I hated REO Speedwagon, but I love...liked "Tough Guys." I hated the Eagles, but...er, okay, bad example. (NO! I KID! I'm a kidder.)
But in this case, the premise is flawed. I never hated Van Halen. I wasn't into them, except when I was. As I've presumably matured, much of what I actually did hate--Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, some disco, even a little bit of Eagles--has grown on me. I doubt I'll ever care for Van Halen's "You Really Got Me," but maybe the rest of their stuff is due for reappraisal.
I don't need to reappraise "Dance The Night Away." It was a fabulous track when I was 19, it's still a fabulous track now that I'm in my sixties, and the through-line from then to now is steady and true. Prior to Eddie Van Halen's death, I had already been thinking for a little while about adding Van Halen to This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's Play-Tone Galaxy O' Stars. What song? It could have been "Jamie's Cryin'," and it could have been "Runnin' With The Devil." It could have been. But really, it had to be "Dance The Night Away." What a great, great record.
Before leaving the subject, I want to tell you a brief story I heard more than 35 years ago. In 1985, I was working at a record store in downtown Buffalo. Security at the store was provided by off-duty cops, and one day our security guy told us about some of his fellow officers working security at a recent Van Halen concert. The story included references to the prerequisite hedonism of a hard rock show, but one part of the narrative always stood out for me:
The cops were standing guard outside the tour bus. One member of the band (you know which member) acted like a preening jerk. But Eddie Van Halen came over to the cops, chatted with them for a bit, found out they were hungry, and then turned around and brought them all sandwiches and beer. A wink and a smile. Runnin' with the devil. There ya go, guys!
He didn't have to do that. He did it anyway. In 2020, this story was the first thing I thought of when I heard that Eddie Van Halen had died. And in that moment, I felt a sense of the loss that fans of Van Halen--the band and the man--were experiencing.
Let the feeling stand. The music will follow. With respect. With love. With understanding. The fans deserve nothing less.
Dance.
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
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