Van Halen hunted out dark, seething and downright weird tones for their fourth album. Opener “Mean Streets” had Eddie Van Halen tapping with an unchained fury and David Lee Roth sneering, “
At night I walk this stinkin' street past the crazies on my block.” The following track, “Dirty Movies,” mixed sleaze, smut and a grinding guitar. Most of the rest sat uncomfortably among aggression (“Sinner’s Swing!”), fever dreams (“Push Comes to Shove”) and angular, ugly prog (“Saturday Afternoon in the Park”).
Then there’s “So This Is Love?”
Released in June 1981 as
Fair Warning's first single, the song shows off Roth's love of cheeky pop, Eddie Van Halen’s talent for pop hooks and the band’s ability to simultaneously swing and stomp. “So This Is Love?” sounds unlike anything else on the LP. It’s closer to the shake, shimmy and wink of “Beautiful Girls” and the pop thrills of “Why Can’t This Be Love” than the oddities found on