Van Halen

It’s not often that I feature a 30-year-old song or a lone vocal track sans the band, but when that song is Van Halen’s "Runnin’ With the Devil,” I feel it would be an injustice to ignore the fact that this thing has surfaced.

Floating around cyberspace for at least a few months now, every time I stumble upon it I can’t help but wet myself. In his time, front-man David Lee Roth was the most flamboyant dude in rock, what with scissor kicks that could castrate a lesser man, the butless leather pants (see above) and as you can hear, those incessant Wildman howls. This vocal track is his moment to shine.

Van Halen’s classic second single from their essential self-titled debut is robbed of Eddie’s laser licks and the foot-pounding rhythm of Michael Anthony’s bass and Alex Van Halen’s kit… and yet it’s effin' priceless, better than the original! It's the lengthy gaps - where you can just barely hear the tracks in Roth's headphones - that keep it magical, sometimes reaching up to ten seconds or so. And when it comes, you'll hear that never has the slide whistle been delivered with such might. (Gotta admit, I never heard the slide whistle in that song till now.)

You’ll see what I mean. And love it.

Van Halen "Runnin’ With the Devil” (Vocal)

Van Halen "Runnin’ With the Devil” (with band)