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Saturday, June 15, 2024
Van Halen - In A Simple Rhyme
At the height of his fame in Kiss, Gene Simmons offered to help Van Halen find a record deal, a process that included making a new demo. Four of the 10 songs that have leaked from the sessions wound up on the band's first six studio albums: "On Fire," "Runnin' With the Devil," "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" and "House of Pain"; "She's the Woman," "Let's Get Rockin'," "Big Trouble" and "Put Out the Lights" were reworked decades later for inclusion on A Different Kind of Truth. A pair of others have never seen proper release, including "Woman in Love," which has no musical relation to Van Halen II's similarly titled "Women in Love.”
Unable to find a record deal for Van Halen, and reportedly under pressure from his Kiss bandmates to focus on his own group, Simmons bowed out of the picture by tearing up the management contract between the two parties. Not too long after, Van Morrison and Doobie Brothers producer Ted Templeman was tipped off to the band, went to see them perform and instantly set about getting them a deal at Warner Bros. He cut a 25-song demo with the group that included new versions of every track they had recorded with Simmons, except for "Woman in Love." Most of the songs eventually found their way onto Van Halen albums, including the four tracks reworked for A Different Kind of Truth. But "We Die Bold," "I Wanna Be Your Lover," "Piece of Mind" and "Light in the Sky" (not to be confused with Van Halen II's "Light Up the Sky") remain unreleased. So does the band's version of the Kim Fowley and Steven Tetsch-penned "Young and Wild," which was later recorded by Cherie Currie. It took a couple of minor modifications for "Bring on the Girls" to become Van Halen II's "Beautiful Girls.” Three other tracks from the Templeman sessions seem at least partially familiar to fans but have varying degrees of differences: "Get the Show on the Road" features half of "Romeo Delight"'s chorus; "Voodoo Queen" shares its main riff - but not much else - with "Mean Street," and also features the coda eventually used on "Hot for Teacher"; and "Last Night" is a nearly complete version of Diver Down's "Hang 'Em High" but with a different chorus and lyrics. Anthony and Roth also recorded a short, druggy parody of Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" as an inside joke for Templeman. From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/unreleased-van-halen-songs/
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