Van Halen - Diver Down
April 14 1982
By Andrew Anthony
Van Halen
Diver Down
Genre: Hard Rock
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Andrew’s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Highlights:
Hang ‘Em High
Cathedral
Little Guitars
Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)
The Full Bug
Requisite ‘80s covers: A bunch, which is probably why many Van Halen fans are a little unforgiving—Where Have All The Good Times Gone, (Oh) Pretty Woman, Dancing in the Streets, Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now), Happy Trails
**Disclosure: As I stated with my review of Fair Warning, I am a huge Van Halen fan. They are my all-time favorite band, and their albums have been an integral part of my life and a major influence on my musical tastes. This will not be an unbiased review. You have been (ahem) fairly warned.
Diver Down is kind of a difficult album to review because it is considered by many die-hard fans to be a lesser effort by the now-seasoned tour kings of party rock, Van Halen. And yet there are many shining musical moments to be had by listening to the band’s fifth studio offering. So, please bear with me.
After a highly successful but grueling summer tour of Fair Warning, a dark but beloved album, the band was ready to take a break before going back into the studio to record their next album. David Lee Roth, the band’s lead singer and ringmaster, suggested the band record a cover single before going on hiatus, “just so people know we’re still alive.” After some discussion about covering Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Streets,” and Eddie Van Halen rejecting the idea because he had difficulty coming up with a riff to play, they band settled on a cover of Roy Orbison’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman.” It took them one day in the studio to bang out their version of the hit song.
It quickly went to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts. Of course, with this quick success, Warner Brothers told the band that they needed to capitalize on the single’s popularity and record an album. So, the band headed back into the studio.
Feeling the pressure to get the album recorded as quickly as possible, Roth decided that the band should record a number of cover songs. Where Have All The Good Times Gone, originally by the Kinks, had been a part of Van Halen’s club days repertoire, so it became a track on Diver Down. Big Bad Bill, a song originally written and recorded in 1924, was an opportunity for the Van Halen brothers to jam with their jazz clarinetist father, Jan Van Halen. Happy Trails, originally the theme song of the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans radio and TV shows, was sung as an a capella, four-part harmony, and became the de facto show closer for Van Halen for the next couple of years.
So, onto the songs themselves:
Track 1) Where Have All The Good Times Gone: This is actually not the first time Van Halen opened an album with a cover. That honor belongs to Van Halen II, when they opened with their version of You’re No Good. The Kinks’ version is a fine bit of British Invasion-era rock and roll, a melancholy ode to the pain of realizing your youthful years are behind you. Van Halen’s version, similar to their version of the Kinks’ You Really Got Me, shifts the song into overdrive. Roth’s playful sarcasm oozes in the line “Ma and pa look back on all the things they used to do, never had no money and they always told the truth.” Eddie’s solo, as he himself explains, was “more sounds than lines,” and it’s true that at least half the solo consists of pick scrapes and random notes. It’s an energetic beginning of a sonically diverse album.
Track 2) Hang ‘Em High: A traditionally aggressive, kinda dark Van Halen track, in the same vein as earlier songs Atomic Punk from Van Halen 1 or DOA from Van Halen 2, with spaghetti western-style lyrics about a leather-clad stranger who “comes from nowhere” and wreaks havoc wherever he goes (“Looking back in anger, the city is relieved.”) Includes a ferocious solo by Eddie.
Track 3) Cathedral: An unusual and intricate guitar instrumental that became the middle section of Eddie’s concert solo. Employing an echo effect while rapidly turning the volume knob up and down on his guitar, Eddie creates a sound that is reminiscent of a Catholic cathedral organ being played. The track (especially when played live) is, in a word, ethereal.
Track 4) Secrets: Continuing the sonic “palate cleansing” started with Cathedral, Secrets is an atypically mellow Van Halen track with romantic and somewhat mysterious lyrics about a woman whose “feet are making tracks in the winter snows”, who has “a rainbow that touches her shoulder”, and is “headed where the thunder rolls”. Eddie’s solo is also relatively mellow, with just light touches of the typical pyrotechnics we are used to.
Tracks 5 and 6) Intruder and Pretty Woman: I’m including these tracks together because Intruder was an extended instrumental introduction written specifically to match the length of the video for Pretty Woman. Intruder begins with an ominous drumbeat, rumbling bass, and keyboard drone. As the minute-and-a-half track continues, it is punctuated by a variety of genuinely nerve-wracking guitar sound effects provided by Eddie. The guitar screams, moans, wails, and generally adds to the mounting feeling of unease, before breaking into the familiar beginning lick of Pretty Woman. (Funny note: I had my mom listen to Intruder on headphones once. Her response? “I imagine this is what the music in Hell sounds like.” She was not a fan.)
The cover of Pretty Woman is pretty straightforward, with a couple of notable exceptions pointed out to me by my old dad the first time I had him listen to it. First, as Pops pointed out, Roth doesn’t do the throaty growl that Roy Orbison did at the end of the second verse, opting instead to create a growling sound by trilling his tongue. Second, Roth omits the line, “I’ll treat you right,” and jumps right into, “I need you, need you tonight.” Pops thought that wasn’t very gentlemanly of him.
Fun Fact: Pretty Woman was one of the first videos to be banned by MTV, due in large part to the depiction of a tied up woman being ogled and fondled by a couple of little people. It’s later revealed at the end of the video that the “pretty woman” is, in fact, a drag queen who takes off his wig, wipes his lipstick off with his sleeve, and gives a knowing smirk to the camera as the band sings its final “Whoa, whoa, pretty woman!”
Track 7) Dancing in the Street: The third cover tune on Diver Down, it begins with an almost hiccuppy sound from a Minimoog synthesizer, before going into a very Van Halenized version of the Motown classic. One aspect of the Van Halen sound that doesn’t get enough credit is on full display here: the gloriously harmonized backing vocals provided by Eddie Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony.
Tracks 8 and 9) Little Guitars (Intro) and Little Guitars: Again, I’m including these tracks together for obvious reasons. Track 8 is an Eddie Van instrumental on flamenco guitar beginning with some swept Spanish-style chords strumming, followed by Mr. VH picking the top string as fast as possible while hammering accompanying notes on the bottom strings. It ends in a swirl of tapping and harmonics. Gorgeous stuff.
Little Guitars, like Secrets, is a bit of a departure from the typical Van Halen sound, with much of the backing guitars being finger plucked in a rapid staccato, rather than a typical strum with a pick that Eddie favors. The lyrics are also unusually and sweetly romantic, with none of the typical Roth innuendo. Even the guitar solo is somewhat subdued.
Track 10) Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now): This track is perhaps the biggest departure from the typical Van Halen sound that exists on a record. A cover of a jazz song written and recorded in 1924 (!!), this song includes a clarinet solo played by Jan Van Halen, the jazz musician father of the Van Halen brothers. Eddie plays a big hollow body guitar with a clean tone, Alex Van Halen uses brushes to play the drums, and Dave unleashes his inner Louis Armstrong as he sings about a man named Bill who was “rough and tough” and “had the whole town scared to death” UNTIL he got married and settled down. Now, he’s “doing the dishes and mopping up that floor”. This was the song I used to convince my parents that Van Halen wasn’t just loud, aggressive party rock—they were actually accomplished musicians.
Track 11) The Full Bug: Speaking of loud, aggressive party rock, we’re back to it with The Full Bug. Starting out with a bluesy acoustic guitar shuffle and Roth warning us that he’s “got a bad little woman, gon’ bite yo’ ass”, this song quickly shifts into a hard rocking tune about Roth wanting to give his woman “the best part of a man.” Eddie’s lightning fast solo morphs into a harmonica solo by Roth, and the song fades with the repeated refrain of “the best part of a man.”
Track 12) Happy Trails: The album ends with the band performing the old western chestnut in a four-part barbershop-style a capella harmony. It’s cheesy and a little off-key, but a perfect ending with the band breaking into laughter and “yee haws” as the track fades.
Final thoughts: Given that the band was worn out from touring and the bad blood between Dave and Ed that had begun in 1981 was getting worse as both were struggling for control over the band, it’s kind of a miracle that this album even got made, let alone only taking 12 days to record. Even more amazing is that, despite nearly half the album consisting of cover tunes, the band was able to branch out, to experiment with new sounds and approaches to songwriting and create songs that were different from anything they had done before. Perhaps that explains why some fans don’t care for this album—it wasn’t what they expected.
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