THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

647-Van Halen-Jump.

1984-Number 7 single.

Best Bit-At 3.36. Here’s an interesting coincidence for those of us with lots of spare time on our hands. The ‘B’ side of the U.S. 7 inch single release of ‘Jump’ is a song called ‘House of Pain.’ In 1992 the American ‘Hip-Hop’ group House of Pain had a hit with a song called ‘Jump’ (see also best songs 75.)

Van Halen were a Rock band who were officially formed in Pasadena, California, United States, in 1973, from 1974 to 1985 the group consisted of Eddie Van Halen, (1955-2020) (lead guitar) his brother Alex Van Halen, (drums) David Lee Roth, (lead vocals) and Michael Anthony (bass.) In 1985 David Lee Roth left the group to pursue a solo career, and he was replaced by Sammy Hagar as the new lead vocalist. Roth returned to the group in 2006, replacing Hagar, and in the same year Michael Anthony left, and was replaced by Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang Van Halen (bass.) After the death of Eddie Van Halen in 2020 the group was retired with Wolfgang Van Halen saying,’You can’t have Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen.’ In total there were eight members of Van Halen come and go, with the other two being founding member Mark Stone, (bass) who died in 2020, and Gary Cherone, who was the lead vocalist between 1996-1999.

With sales in excess of 80 million records sold worldwide, Van Halen are amongst the best selling artist of all time. Their discography includes 12 studio Albums released between 1978-2012, and 56 singles issued within the same time period, there are also two official compilation Albums, and two live Albums available. In America on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, 16 of their songs have reached the top 40, with ‘Jump’ making the Number 1 spot in 1984, while in the UK, they have had six top 40 hits, with ‘Jump’ peaking the highest at Number 7.

‘Jump’ was the first of four singles released from Van Halen’s sixth studio Album ‘1984,’ which is sometimes stylized in Roman numerals as ‘MCMLXXXIV.’ The song was co-written by all four group members at that time, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, and Michael Anthony, with the production being by Ted Templeton. ‘Jump’ is Van Halen’s most successful single, and introduced the use of a synthesizer by Eddie Van Halen, which David Lee Roth objected to, as he thought it would be seen as the group selling out in order to get more radio play. Eddie had written the music in 1981, admitting that he had copied the synth part from the Darryl Hall and John Oates (see also best songs 881) song ‘Kiss On My List’ (1980-Billboard Number 1 & UK Number 33 single.) Darryl Hall has stated that he had no problem with Eddie doing that.

‘Jump’ was produced by Ted Templeman, who was born Edward John Templeman, on October 24th, 1942, in Santa Cruz, California, United States. Templeman began his music career as the drummer, and than later the guitarist, and vocalist with the American ‘Sunshine Pop’ band Harpers Bizarre, who are best remembered for their 1967 cover of the Paul Simon song ‘The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy’) (1967-Billboard Number 13 & UK Number 34 single.) In 1970 Templeman began working for ‘Warner Bros.’ records, and it was he who discovered the ‘Doobie Brothers,’ going on to produce 11 of their Albums. He has also produced seven Albums for Van Halen, as well as Albums by Van Morrison, Carly Simon, and many others.

Ted Templeman has recalled the night ‘Jump’ was recorded at Eddie Van Halen’s newly constructed home studio. ‘Engineer Donn Landee and Ed put the track down alone in the middle of the night. We re-cut it once in one take for sonic reasons. Dave wrote the lyrics that afternoon in the backseat of his Mercury convertible. We finished all vocals that afternoon and mixed it that evening.’ David Lee Roth wrote the lyrics, and he has teased with various accounts as to what the song is about, but usually he tells the story of a news story he saw on television about a man about to kill himself by jumping off a building, Roth thought to himself, ‘might as well jump,’ but in a positive sense, ‘Don’t jump to your death, but instead jump in to a more positive frame of mind, and make the most of your life.’

‘I get up and nothin’ gets me down, you got it tough, I’ve seen the toughest around. And I know, baby, just how you feel, you got to roll with the punches to get to what’s real.’