Beautiful Girls Van Halen

Beautiful Girls Album: Van Halen II (1979)
by Van Halen

This song is a credo of sorts for Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth: all he needs is a beautiful girl. Or more accurately, beautiful girls, as Roth played himself off as a rock-and-roll Lothario.

The song showcases his wordplay ("She was seaside sittin', just a smokin' and a drinkin' on ringside") as well as Eddie Van Halen's deluxe guitar riffs and Michael Anthony's rich backing vocals.

"Beautiful Girls" was the second single from the Van Halen II album, following "Dance The Night Away." Their singles did not sell well, but their albums did. Many people bought the first Van Halen album after hearing this one.

The group wrote this in David Lee Roth's basement. They had just finished a tour and were under tight deadline pressure to record their second album. They released an album every year until 1984.

Roth fractured his foot doing a jump for the album's photo shoot. Since there was no way Roth could stay still on stage, they postponed their tour so he could heal.

The album took six days to record. Van Halen was quick in the studio because they laid down most of the tracks live, with very little overdubbing.

Brad Tolinski, who spoke with Eddie Van Halen for Guitar World a number of times, had a revelation about this song after a conversation with Steve Vai. "I was listening to 'Beautiful Girls,' and what hit me was that these wild assortment of bends and growls and zany guitar sounds, they functioned almost as commentary on David Lee Roth's outrageously, hypersexual, Bugs Bunny persona," he said. "It was almost like Looney Tunes. Like Carl Stalling, who wrote the music for Looney Tunes. So, what you have, since Ed is such a sensitive musician, he's responding to this outrageous persona of David Lee Roth and just creating sounds that would somehow go along with that. I think that 'Beautiful Girls' is such a perfect example of David Lee Roth being funny and off the wall, and Eddie having to figure out something on the guitar to respond."

On their 1979 tour, David Lee Roth gave each of the crew members five backstage passes, which they were supposed to give to beautiful women. If Roth shacked up with one of the babes, he gave the roadie that got her in $100 the next day.

Eddie and Alex were born and raised in Holland. Their family moved to Pasadena, California in 1967, when Eddie was 10 and Alex was 12.

Eddie took piano lessons throughout his youth. He credits his understanding of classical music for his ability to write songs.

Eddie and Alex' father, Jan Van Halen, was a professional clarinet player.

Their original name was Mammoth, but they changed it after finding out another band had it first. It was Roth's idea to use the name Van Halen - Eddie and Alex didn't like it.

Roth was in a band called Redball Jet when he met Eddie and Alex. Michael Anthony met Alex at Pasadena City College.
Eddie had serious stage fright, and the only way he could perform early on was by having some drinks beforehand, which was something his dad suggested. He quickly became a very high-functioning alcoholic, but his drinking had a profound effect on his health, his personal relationships, and the band. He credited his wife Janie Liszewski, whom he met in 2006, with getting him sober, which he finally did around 2009. For most of 2008, Eddie sat around the house watching television and weaning himself off of alcohol.

In 1977, Gene Simmons saw them in concert and set up their first recording session. He flew them to New York and bought them new clothes, but the resulting demo still didn't get them a record deal. The record companies were reluctant to sign them because disco was in and rock was out.

They had a provision in their contract demanding M&Ms backstage with the brown ones removed. This was a way of seeing if the promoters read the contract. If they saw brown M&Ms, they knew there would be problems with the show.

When Van Halen first appeared, there was a rumor that the group were actually members of KISS without their makeup and attire. If you take a close look at early pics of them, David Lee Roth resembled Paul Stanley, Eddie Van Halen resembled Ace Frehley, and Michael Anthony resembled Gene Simmons. This rumor may had been fueled by Gene Simmons' discovery of the group, and the fact that Van Halen had appeared right around the time KISS had taken a break from the recording studio in 1977. The rumor was soon quelled when the individual members of KISS released their "solo" albums in 1978 around the same time Van Halen II was released, and people began to really notice the height differential between Alex Van Halen and Peter Criss.

Anthony's real last name is Sobolewski.