Van Halen was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972… Read Full Bio ↴Van Halen was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with "restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene", Van Halen was known for its energetic live shows and for the virtuosity of its lead guitarist, Eddie Van Halen. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

From 1974 until 1985, Van Halen consisted of Eddie Van Halen; Eddie's brother, drummer Alex Van Halen; vocalist David Lee Roth; and bassist/vocalist Michael Anthony. Upon its release in 1978, the band's self-titled debut album reached No. 19 on the Billboard pop music charts and would sell over 10 million copies in the U.S. By 1982, the band released four more albums (Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning, and Diver Down), all of which have since been certified multi-platinum. By the early 1980s, Van Halen was one of the most successful rock acts of the day. The album 1984 was a commercial success with U.S. sales of 10 million copies and four hit singles; its lead single, "Jump", was the band's only U.S. number one single.

In 1985, Roth left the band to embark on a solo career and was replaced by former Montrose lead vocalist Sammy Hagar. With Hagar, the group released four U.S. number-one, multi-platinum albums over the course of 11 years (5150 in 1986, OU812 in 1988, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge in 1991, and Balance in 1995). Hagar left the band in 1996 shortly before the release of the band's first greatest hits collection, Best of Volume 1. Former Extreme frontman Gary Cherone replaced Hagar and recorded the commercially unsuccessful album Van Halen III with the band in 1998, before parting ways in 1999. Van Halen then went on hiatus until reuniting with Hagar in 2003 for a worldwide tour in 2004 and the double-disc greatest hits collection The Best of Both Worlds. Hagar again left Van Halen in 2005. In 2006 Roth returned, but Anthony was replaced on bass guitar by Eddie's son, Wolfgang Van Halen. In 2012, the band released their final studio album A Different Kind of Truth, which was commercially and critically successful; it was also Van Halen's first album with Roth in 28 years and the only one to feature Wolfgang.

As of March 2019, Van Halen is 20th on the RIAA list of best-selling artists in the United States; the band has sold 56 million albums in the States and more than 80 million worldwide, making them one of the best-selling groups of all time. As of 2007, Van Halen is one of only five rock bands with two studio albums to sell more than 10 million copies in the United States and is tied for the most multi-platinum albums by an American band. Additionally, Van Halen has charted 13 number-one hits on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. VH1 ranked the band seventh on a list of the top 100 Hard Rock artists of all time.

Eddie was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, and died of the disease on October 6, 2020. A month after his father's death, Wolfgang confirmed that Van Halen had disbanded.

Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen

Studio albums
Van Halen (1978)
Van Halen II (1979)
Women and Children First (1980)
Fair Warning (1981)
Diver Down (1982)
1984 (1984)
5150 (1986)
OU812 (1988)
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991)
Balance (1995)
Van Halen III (1998)
A Different Kind of Truth (2012)

Girl Gone Bad
Van Halen Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Ah, lazy eyes in the summer heat
Fresh from outta town
Now she's working on the street
Shakin' poor boys down

Ooh (girl)
Ooh, girl gone bad, yeah
(Girl) girl gone bad

Found that girl with a lonesome John
But she should've been with me
Guess that woman didn't fall in love
She don't work for free

(Girl) girl gone bad, yeah
Ah, ah, ah, ah

Mmm, oh, mmm, ah, mmm, ah, mmm, ah, oh

(Girl) girl gone bad
(Girl) oh, girl, girl gone bad

(Girl) ow, yeah, ooh, ooh, ooh
(Girl) ooh, oh, oh, oh

(Girl) yeah, ah
(Girl) say, say, ugh

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Van Halen's "Girl Gone Bad" may seem straightforward at first -- a story of a girl who arrives in town and starts shaking down boys for money, ultimately ending up with someone else. However, there are deeper themes at play in the song, particularly around the concept of "badness." The girl herself might be seen as "bad," but the singer is also wrestling with his own sense of being "bad," as evidenced by the repeated use of the phrase "girl gone bad, yeah."

One interpretation of the song could be that the girl represents a kind of temptation or temptation personified -- she's "fresh from outta town," which implies both a sense of newness and a lack of familiarity with the norms of the town. Her "lazy eyes" and willingness to shake down the poor boys suggest a kind of power she holds over them, and the repetition of the phrase "girl gone bad" suggests that this is a kind of transformation -- she was once good, but something about the town or her situation has turned her bad.

At the same time, the singer might also be grappling with his own sense of badness -- perhaps he's tempted by the girl as well, perhaps he sees himself as bad for wanting her, or perhaps he's simply caught up in a kind of moral malaise that the girl's arrival has brought out in him. The song then becomes a kind of exploration of the ways in which badness can manifest itself, both in external temptations (like the girl) and internal struggles.

Line by Line Meaning

Ah, lazy eyes in the summer heat
The singer is describing a girl who doesn't pay attention to him because of her lazy eyes.

Fresh from outta town
The girl is new to the town.

Now she's working on the street
The girl is a streetwalker.

Shakin' poor boys down
The girl is exploiting poor and desperate boys.

Ooh (girl)

Ooh, girl gone bad, yeah
The girl has turned into something undesirable.

(Girl) girl gone bad

Found that girl with a lonesome John
The artist saw the girl with a man who seemed lonely.

But she should've been with me
The artist thinks that the girl should have been with him instead of that man.

Guess that woman didn't fall in love
The artist thinks that the girl didn't fall in love with him.

She don't work for free
The girl is charging money for her services.