It’s surreal to see Van Halen this early–complete with David Lee Roth wearing a pearl necklace. I wish I could find out who directed this, but I can’t. I did find out, thanks to the Van Halen News Desk, that it was filmed at the Whiskey A Go Go in 1977. Other than that, people bring up that it was done similarly to the way it was done live. There’s the alleged KISS impersonation rocking back and forth bit. Roth screws up a bit on the lip-syncing. The obvious crew members in the shots are funny. However, none of those things make this music video fun for me.

What I love is how the four of them act onstage. Alex seems to be into it, but is covered with smoke and focused on what he is doing. Eddie looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. David looks like he desperately wants more stage to work with. Michael appears to be having the time of his life. I can’t take my eyes off of him during the music video. He’s awesome. I know he would go on to make Hot For Teacher unintentionally funny in 1984 because he couldn’t dance, but I didn’t realize he was working his magic this far back.

As for the meaning of the song, if we’re going by Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982) logic, then clearly it’s Satanic. If we have brains, then it’s Van Halen’s Highway To Hell, and is mainly about life on the road. I’m not kidding about the Satanic part though. They got accused of that, because of course they did.

Enjoy!