How to play dance the night away by van halen
DAVID LEE ROTH Shares Newly Recorded Version Of VAN HALEN's 'Dance The Night Away'
September 24, 2022
David Lee Roth has shared a new solo version of the VAN HALEN classic "Dance The Night Away". The track, like the previously released "Panama" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love", was laid down on May 3, 2022 during a session at Henson Recording Studio in Hollywood, California. Joining Roth in the studio were Al Estrada on guitar, Ryan Wheeler on bass and Francis Valentino on drums. A total of 14 songs were recorded in two hours. The music and the vocals were tracked live with "no samples" and without the pitch-correction technology Auto-Tune.
Roth's versions of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and "Panama" come more than a month after he shared a previously unheard solo recording from 2007, "Nothing Could Have Stopped Us Back Then Anyway", in which he looked back nostalgically on his days in VAN HALEN. The latter song was recorded in 2007 with guitarist John 5 and drummer Gregg Bissonette for an album that never came out.
Back in 2020, Roth included five previously unreleased songs in The Roth Project, an online comic narrated by the legendary VAN HALEN singer, with music from John 5 on guitar and bass, Bissonette on drums, Brett Tuggle on keyboards, and Luis Conte on percussion. The tracks "Giddy-Up!", "Somewhere Over The Rainbow Bar And Grill", "Alligator Pants", "Lo-Rez Sunset" and "Manda Bala" were recorded at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, California.
Three years ago, Roth was asked by Meltdown of the Detroit radio station WRIF if his LP with John 5 will be made available at some point. He responded: "It will. There's been a revision of things, and I can start making real plans and start marching into the future. And, of course, you'll start hearing that material.
This is material that we wrote variously for me solo and for VAN HALEN, and it's quite a bank of stuff."
Roth, who was promoting his Las Vegas residency at the time, didn't offer a possible time frame for the release of the record, explaining that his priority was "getting out on the road first. Let's see the band, let's show ourselves off, let's travel all over the world."
Roth canceled a series of Las Vegas residency shows in January because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Three months earlier, he had announced in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he was planning to retire after the residency.
In July, Roth released a new solo song titled "Pointing At The Moon". The acoustic-based, Americana-flavored tune was accompanied by a new abstract painting from Roth.
Hear the solo guitar of Van Halen's 'Dance the Night Away'
(Credit: Alamy)
Dance music wasn’t exactly the bread and butter of Van Halen. The L.A. hard rock quartet were better suited for headbanging, but frontman David Lee Roth made sure that audiences were always having a good time during concerts. Part of that was getting them up to dance during the songs that were groovy enough to inspire some hip-shaking moves. Of course, it helps when you have a song that literally calls for audiences to move their feet.
‘Dance the Night Away’ was a major step forward for Van Halen when it appeared on their sophomore LP, Van Halen II. It might not have included any of the synthesisers that were emblematic of Van Halen’s shift towards a more mainstream sound throughout the 1980s, but ‘Dance the Night Away’ was certainly the poppiest and most radio-friendly single the band had released up to that point.
It’s no surprise, then, that ‘Dance the Night Away’ became the first Van Halen song to crack the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 15 in the summer of 1979. Many more hits were to follow, including the band’s only number one, ‘Jump’. But ‘Dance the Night Away’ showed Van Halen a path to the future, one that opened up an entire world of commercial success without sacrificing their hard rock bona fides.
Eddie Van Halen approached his guitar track with a minimalist mindset. Throughout the track, there’s only one pick slide, a few harmonic notes, and no tapping.
There’s also no guitar solo, something that was almost unheard of for Van Halen at the time. Eddie had become frustrated with the hype surrounding him and wanted to prove that he was capable of more than just flash and histrionics. He wanted to show that all he needed was four chords and a monster melody to propel a song to success.
This is still Eddie Van Halen, though. There are plenty of classic hallmarks that were emblematic of his style – quick stops, hammer-ons, and yes, that one badass pick slide that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Also invaluable to Van Halen’s guitar playing is his simplicity. Early in the band’s career, Eddie rarely messed with any kind of array of pedals. He had his effects, but in order to change the tone of the guitar, he would mostly resort to simply turning down the volume knob. You can hear him crank it up to full power as the band descends into the final chorus.
Also interesting to note is Eddie’s countermelody that carries the song into its fade.
Deviations from his standard riffing were relatively rare in the early days of Van Halen, but they would become more prominent as the band approached the 1980s. Those counterpoints would increasingly be handled by keyboards in later years, but here it’s just Eddie and his guitar, adding a few well-placed notes to give the final chorus a little bit of spice.
Check out Eddie Van Halen’s isolated guitar for ‘Dance the Night Away’ down below.
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{{/pages}}Eddie Van Halen: Ten Songs by the Legendary Musician
ShareOn October 6, 2020, it became known about the death of Eddie Van Halen, a virtuoso guitarist who inspired more than one generation of rock musicians with his playing style.
The cause of death was cancer of the tongue. Van Halen has been battling the disease for a long time. Since 2001, he has been missing a third of his tongue: it was removed during treatment.
The musician managed to immortalize his surname in the name of the group of the same name. The Van Halen team is really remembered by rock music fans for its outstanding members: drummer Alex Van Halen - brother of Eddie Van Halen; frontman David Lee Roth, who with his charisma turned the band's performances into whole shows; Roth's successors, vocalists Sammy Hagar and Gary Cerone, who also contributed to the band's history.
However, the musical canvas in the work of the band was the virtuosic, exciting with its dynamics and drive, the play of the guitarist and co-founder of the band, Edward Van Halen.
In memory of the legendary musician, here are just a few of the songs that made Van Halen one of the most notable rock bands of their time, and Eddie Van Halen one of the most important guitarists of all time.
Jump
Arguably the band's most recognizable song, Jump, came from a TV report that frontman David Lee Roth happened to see on TV. In the TV story, a man threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of a building. Roth admitted that among those gathered below, there might well be someone who would shout: “Come on, jump!”. Thus was born the title line of the song: Go Ahead and Jump!
David Lee Roth wrote the lyrics in the back seat of a 1951 Mercury. During this time in the car, the band listened to a simple tune written by Eddie Van Halen, but subsequently rejected by the band.
As a result, the musicians decided to combine Roth's text and Van Halen's music. The result was Jump: the song made the melody one of the most recognizable synth parts in rock music and became a frequent attribute of many sporting events.
Although the text of the song has nothing to do with suicide, and the "jump" symbolizes only the call of the hero of the song to a romantic relationship, the song has not escaped a wary attitude towards itself. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the composition was included in the list of songs, the rotation of which was undesirable due to a possible negative association.
Panama
Van Halen critics have stated that the band writes about nothing but sex, parties and expensive cars. However, this was not entirely true: David Lee Roth recalled that the musicians actually never performed a single song about cars. The song Panama, which became one of the main hits of Van Halen, was called to correct this misunderstanding.
According to one version, the name of the song is not related to the country of the same name. It is believed that Panama Express is the name of the car that Roth saw at the races in Las Vegas.
However, this is not the same car that we see in the clip. The video shows the same Mercury 1951 in which the aforementioned Jump hit was written. True, another car can be heard in the song: on the lines "I can barely see the road because of the heat rising from the ground" (2:50), in the background we hear the roar of the engine of Eddie Van Halen's car Lamborghini Miura S.
Hot For Teacher
Hot For Teacher has become a kind of quintessence of bold style and outrageousness in the band's work. Judge for yourself: the song, dedicated to the love of a young man in a school teacher, is full of sexual overtones, which even led to a call to ban the song from the Parents Music Resource Center.
In the controversial video, Eddie Van Halen performs guitar solos while pacing school desks while models in bikinis parade at the blackboard.
Even the musical content of the song sounds daring and unusual for a single: the introduction to the track is an almost minute solo by the Van Halen brothers, who set the mood for the entire composition with their virtuoso drumming and guitar playing.
Unchained
The band's tenth anniversary single has become one of the most beloved tracks by musicians during concerts. "Change, nothing stays the same," sings David Lee Roth in a song whose title can be translated as "Unchained."
The motive of the song conveys what has been noted by many critics: the rebellious style of Van Halen, and at the same time the willingness of the musicians to experiment and their openness to new technical solutions. The album Fair Warning, from which Unchained was released, revealed to the world a harder and, according to some, darker sound of the group, an integral part of which was the expressive playing of Eddie Van Halen.
Eruption
It's hard to say if Van Halen knew that "Eruption" - which is how the title of the track Eruption is translated - would have such an explosive, comparable to a volcanic eruption, effect on other guitarists.
This virtuoso solo with its dynamism can impress even people who are far from rock music. It is partly created using tapping, a technique in which sound is produced by lightly tapping the strings between the frets on the fretboard with both hands. Van Halen was not its originator, but he can certainly be called its popularizer: it was after Eruption that countless guitarists adopted this technique in the 80s and continue to experiment with it to this day.
The track itself has become a kind of musical standard in rock and is considered one of the most influential guitar solos in the history of the genre.
However, the legendary solo may never have been included in the Van Halen album. The guitarist himself used it as a warm-up during live performances until the band's producer Ted Templeman convinced the musicians to record a solo. Van Halen later admitted that he made a mistake when recording: “I didn’t even play it with all the accuracy ... Every time I hear a solo, I think:“ But I could have played better.
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
"For us, it was nothing more than some stupid song - just two chords," is how Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love' Eddie Van Halen described song, which became one of the main hits of the group.
The song was conceived as a parody of the work of punk rock musicians. As a result, she turned out to be far from the punk genre, but instead helped win the group a devoted army of fans, and Van Halen's guitar introduction became one of the band's "calling cards".
The irony is that the song influenced not only hard rock, but also the genre it was intended to parody. The frontman of the famous punk rock band Green Day, Billy Joel, recalled that this song was the first one he learned on the guitar.
I'm the One
According to Van Halen himself, his virtuoso performance on the song I'm the One became his favorite solo from Van Halen's first and, in many ways, iconic album.
This unusual composition, where hard rock mixes with boogie-woogie motifs, is one of the fastest songs from Van Halen's early work.
I'm the One can be considered a kind of presentation of the group, which the musicians in their very first album made it clear what to expect from them: from David Lee Roth's introductory phrase "We're here to entertain you", ending with Eddie Van Halen's ultra-dynamic game.
Spanish Fly
Spanish Fly sounds like proof that everything about the guitar, in the hands of Van Halen, has become not only a masterful piece of music, but also an often unattainable goal for many rock guitarists.
Often compared to Eruption due to the speed of playing and similar technique (still the same tapping), in its atmosphere Spanish Fly is very different from the guitarist's last hit (as, indeed, from all of Van Halen's work). The flamenco-style acoustic version still garners comments on YouTube to this day: “How is that even possible?!”
Dance the Night Away
Much softer, to some extent even pop sound of the song Dance the Night Away is strikingly different from the band's more daring and hard rock compositions.
But nevertheless, it was he who attracted a significant number of fans to the army of Van Halen fans.
Radio station management positively perceived the lightness of the song, giving it much more airtime compared to other hits of the group. Hearing the song on the radio, many future fans of the group rushed to buy their second album, and later purchased their debut record. As a result, Van Halen's first compilation, which sold a million copies in its first year, ended up selling ten million copies.
Right Now
Right Now was intended - at least in the writers' minds - to be about more serious topics, something that Van Halen fans never expected from the band. As conceived by Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar, who replaced David Lee Roth, the lyrics were to become an anthem for change: the song, recorded in 1991, was clearly influenced by political events in the post-Soviet space.
Hagar, who claimed to be tired of "cheap sex songs", admitted that he thought Right Now was the best song he wrote for Van Halen.
The more serious theme of the song, its solemn sound and melodic keyboard part, played by Eddie Van Halen, really differed from the band's past work.
However, the Van Halen audience, which might have been frightened by the band's creative "growing up", should not have been frightened. During this period of their work, Van Halen did not lose many of the elements that allowed the group to earn cult status. Aside from the synth, the song still features Van Halen's masterful guitar solo, and the band's rebellious spirit can be easily seen in the album's innocuous title, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which is an abbreviation for an obscene word.
Besides, the song cannot be called some kind of political manifesto. At the same time, the British band Jesus Jones released a track with an almost identical title - Right Here, Right Now - which had a much more political focus, while the Van Halen song only called for living in the present moment and not being afraid of change.
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Russian service "Voice of America"
Van Halen - The Trouble With Never lyrics You often wonder,
you wanna know.
How deep does
the rabbit hole go?
I know you never thought about it
but ask yourself later:
When you turn on your stereo
does it return the favor?
I gotta know!
That's the trouble with never
(It) sure seems like a mighty long time.
That's the trouble with never.
When was the last time
Hello!
Every Einstein's assigned
a Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.
Any old fool could see,
never even wonder.
Yeah we could come together.
I will call for you.
Hey, never's good for me.
How's never sound to you?
1-800-Tell-Me-Baby!
That's the trouble with never
(It) sure may be a mighty long time.
That's the trouble with never.
When was the last time
Yeah!
Level with me baby!
Talk to me!
[Solo]
This could
damage your reputation:
my wicked wicked ways,
but maybe I just will
since you put it that way.
Delusions of eloquence?
You never can say.
You wanna play
the game?
You can't quit when you get played.
"Mistakes make people."
Isn't that what people say?
Let's un-plan the moment,
dance the night away.
Selective amnesia
is only a heartbeat away.
A simple question
concerning time:
"Suppose you wait forever
and then you change your mind?"
Oh No!
That's the trouble with never,
sure could be a mighty long time.
That's the trouble with never.
When was the last time
When was it?
When was it?
Ah, text me baby!
When baby?
Tell me!
When was the last time baby?
Show me! You often wonder,
you want to know.
How deep does
go down the rabbit hole?
I know you've never thought about this
but ask yourself later:
When you turn on the stereo
does it return a favor?
I must know!
This is never a problem,
(This) certainly seems very long.
This is never a problem.
When was the last time
did you do something for the first time?
Hello!
Each Einstein is assigned
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.
Any old fool has seen,
don't even be surprised.
Yes, we could get together.
I will call you.
Hey, this never works for me.
How does never sound to you?
1-800-Tell-Me-Baby!
This is never a problem,
(This) could certainly be a very long time.
This is never a problem.
When was the last time
did you do something for the first time?
Yes!
Level with me baby!
Talk to me!
[Solo]
It could, it could
damage your reputation:
my evil evil ways,
but maybe I'll just be
since you put it that way.
Mania for eloquence?
You can never tell.
Do you want to play
game?
You cannot quit smoking while being played.
"Mistakes make people.
