Van Halen
Van Halen
(Warner Bros., 1978)
Van Halen II
Van Halen
(Warner Bros., 1979)
One of my favorite quotes from a rock star comes from Eddie Van Halen, circa 1984, to this effect: "I am so much geekier than any of those kids dreaming about being me." I've never had a problem believing that, because for a guy to have learned his craft the way he did (I think he's one of the top 5 rock guitarists of all time, behind Hendrix and Richard Thompson), he had to spend a long time in his basement at the age of twelve. Cheetos and Pepsi cans up to his armpits while he was discovering how to fret-tap. He may wear a cheap tuxedo in the "Hot for Teacher" video, but I bet Eddie never went to a single prom. If he did, I bet he wore that exact same tux.
I never spent a lot of time listening to Van Halen when I should have, as a straight white male teenager in the 80's, because I was one of the drama fags. Van Halen were sort of the dividing line between aggressive music that responded to my immediate psychological needs (Sex Pistols, Black Flag), and the overly enhanced hard rock that was designed as a reinforcer of the male masculine type. This would include all distorted guitar bands from, roughly, Van Halen and upward. (Might've been Def Leppard, since they misspelled their name so threateningly.)
I never imagined Van Halen probably felt as awkwardly as I or any other schoolkid did. The first time I had a clue was when Aztec Camera covered "Jump" as a wistful, slowed-down, bruised-heart song. "I ain't the worst that you seen." When Roddy Frame sang it, he was self-deprecating. When David Lee Roth did, he was cracking a joke. I think Roth knew he was the hottest motherfucker in the room, all chesty and crotchless-pantied.
Or did he? After hearing the first Van Halen album for the first time all the way through -- told you, I never exposed myself to this stuff in a timely fashion -- I'm not so sure this band wasn't fully aware, trying for a subtext. I think they knew how lonely it could get, as Leonard Cohen once asked Hank Williams.
Adolescent sexuality might have defined Van Halen, but sexuality befuddles every adolescent at one time or another. On their first album they seem cognizant of that, as Roth blusters his pants into sexual situations with all the subtlety of a horny teenager. It's a pose that most guys want to perfect when they're teenagers. It's a hormonal urge that nobody has been able to quarantine since Shakespeare had it make some men kill their fathers. But as macho as Van Halen gets -- and this is what surprised me about Van Halen I and II -- it's not misogynist in the least. I mean, they're not feminists or anything. But they're not total hedonists either.
In fact, a good part of why Van Halen I is so great is, when you're really listening, there's a melancholy feeding through every bit of it. There's the obvious example of this in "Jamie's Cryin'" of course ("She knows what love is for/it should mean a little more than one-night stands"). But I can hear it in "Little Dreamer, "Atomic Punk" and, if you can believe this, "Runnin' With the Devil." They're all essentially about someone being alone.
The dude in "Runnin'" walks in steely indifference, but it's undisciplined. It's a youthful, blocky restatement of why some kid thinks certain men like The Hitcher walk alone. The kid in "Atomic Punk" does the same, but it's only because he's a cyborg and none of the best restaurants will seat him. It's a teenage vision, but it is not dumb. It's what any hard rock band covering the same beat probably owed by way of explanation, but most just left it in the footnotes.
When Roth is trying to get into pants, he paints on a swagger. It usually works. But when they're done giving each other the business in the backseat, and they have to talk about something, he pinpoints the frailties in his lover. But he doesn't leave. Even though they've just been knocking each other into teenage ecstasy, after they've addressed and dispensed with the physical tension, they realize -- or Roth realizes -- that they have fears.
This is why "Little Dreamer" is heartbreaking: "Now no one's talking 'bout those crazy days gone by/No one talks about the times you cried... And then they went and they voted you least likely to succeed/I had to tell them baby you were armed with all you'd need."
Strict hedonists don't recognize -- or at least don't get too tripped up by -- the admission that such vulnerabilities exist. They leave you in the back of the cab and stick you with the fare. They probably think Jamie's just having her time of the month. But the kid in Van Halen's songs, the one who opens his collar a bit and flits an innuendo your way just to get you in the sack, doesn't exactly abandon the girl the way lesser souls brag about doing.
Van Halen, in their clumsy way, try to bring it up. And when I say clumsy, I mean to say they mean well. But they can't really explain it how they want to (although "Little Dreamer" comes really close), so they just head back to Eddie's basement and surround it with epic rock guitar riffs. Slight traces of tension between the two -- the naif who just can't say things right, and the balls-out expertise of the band -- make it easy to understand why this played to the high schools and community colleges. But it's still poignant.
Every song on Van Halen has that compassion to it. Even the sex plays like "Ice Cream Man" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" have that sad tinge to 'em. Go ahead, listen to it.
The only reason Van Halen II isn't as good is because most of the ideas are a little underdeveloped. After the supreme "Dance the Night Away" -- one of the rare hard rock party anthems that's legitimately beautiful -- they immediately lose their attention span. When they're primed to take it to another level, they just stop the song. Until the last three songs, that is: "D.O.A.," "Women in Love..." (with ellipses) and "Beautiful Girls," which find the kids finally getting through with their unrefined oats and unpolished sensuality, ready to at least try being young adults. Their final decision is to wait on the beach with all their money until the hot chicks show up. Now that's what I call a resolution, pikers! I'll drink to that, baby!
So maybe that's why Roth and Eddie didn't get along. After 1984 -- which contained "Jump," resurrecting the anxiety the first two albums contained -- Roth decided to become a comedian, whereas Eddie wanted to go somewhere with off-street parking. That's when Sammy Hagar came in. Parts of Hagar's tenure with VH were convincing, but on the whole it lacked the thrill Mach I had crafted. Hagar was an established adult. Even though they were naming albums after dirty acronyms and vague oral sex puns, it was neither funny nor tender.
But all of the first Van Halen album, and half of the second, are some of the most informed and musically extraordinary postcards from Juvenalia you can find. You were young once, you know. As for now, it's a nice place to visit, but... well, to be honest, that's the end of my thought: It's just a really nice place to visit.
