This is a 1978 song that I associate with my junior year of high school in 1982-83. That's when cousin Randy came to live with our family and we shared a bedroom. Randy brought three albums with him, which I'll now list in order of popularity with me.
1. "Van Halen" by--you guessed it--Van Halen
2. "Diver Down" by Van Halen
3. "Cat Scratch Fever" by Ted Nugent
Listening to the Nuge is best done in small doses. While I liked the song "Homebound," you just can't listen to the album repeatedly over and over like you can other albums. Otherwise, you'll want to kill somebody after the third playing of "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang"--which is somehow appropriate since the song that follows Wang Dang is "Death by Misadventure." That's why I encouraged Randy to play "Van Halen" whenever I could.
One of the things we enjoyed doing while listening to this album is that we'd play air guitar to "Eruption" to see if we could make the other one laugh. It was kind of a lead-in to the next son, so at the end of "Eruption" we'd pause and hold the pose for two seconds and then rock out to "You Really Got Me" while singing the lyrics.
Here's a 2015 video of Eddie playing the real guitar and Dave singing lead. They reunited, and it didn't feel so good. Dave's got a bandage over his nose because just before they played this song he whacked himself in the face with the mic stand and busted his nose. They had to wait for the medics to patch him up before he could return and finish the gig. Eddie played for the crowd while they waited.
I'm sure Randy would have got a huge kick out of seeing Dave with a broken nose still singing on stage. He always said he wanted to be either Dave or Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." His favorite Spicoli saying was, "All I need are some tasty waves, cool buzz, and I'm fine." Also, at the end of the movie, there was a note on the screen that said Spicoli had saved Brook Shields from drowning and blown the reward money on having Van Halen play at his birthday party.
Shortly after Randy arrived in Arimo and began working for Spencer, he bought another album--Pink Floyd's "The Wall."
It was the best out of all of Randy's albums, but it didn't prompt the wild air guitar moves like Van Halen did. By the time Randy left in May of 1983, he had turned me into a Van Halen fan, and when their "1984" album came out, I immediately liked it all. Whenever I listened to it I always wondered what Randy thought of the songs. I'm sure he royally rocked the air guitar to "Panama," "Girl Gone Bad," and "House of Pain." But I didn't. It just wasn't as fun to do that anymore without Randy there to both laugh at and make laugh.
And that's why I've got a song from Van Halen's debut album on my Top 200, but not anything from 1984. That album came out in January of 1984, so it was quickly adopted by those of us in the class of '84 as a popular album to listen to. And "Jump" was a big hit, but it's been so overplayed since we graduated that I will not always stop changing the radio station when I hear it. Of course, "Panama" was a real contender for the list, but I really don't want to have to think about what Diamond Dave was doing during that pause after he reached down between his legs--------to ease the seat back. I'm sure it wasn't playing air guitar. The only other Van Halen song that had a shot at my Top 200 was "Happy Trails" from Diver Down. Randy and I used to sing along whenever it played, and we'd sometimes break out into the song while we were out doing chores. One of us would sing the song while the other would "bom-ba-de-da" through the lines. And that's the song that really sums up my feelings about Randy now--happy trails to you 'till we meet again!
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