Van Halen, ‘Jump’ – Butch’s Way Back Wednesday

As a music fan there is always something new and great, but there really is something special about the songs you grew up listening to. For me, that was 70′s and 80′s classic rock. If I am in a shi**y mood, I throw in a little Zeppelin or Rush and take a trip back to rolling in my mom’s T-Bird. Now every Wednesday you get to take that trip with me. It’s Way Back Wednesday with Butch, and today’s feature goes back 30 years to celebrate this band's only #1 hit… Van Halen's, "Jump."

"Jump" was released in December 1983 as the lead single from the album 1984, and went on to be the only single the group released with David Lee Roth to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

David Lee Roth has given various accounts of the meaning behind the lyrics, but he usually says they are about a TV news story he saw where a man was about to kill himself by jumping off a building (Roth thought, "Might as well jump"). He's also said the song is about a stripper.

1984 was David Lee Roth's last album with Van Halen, and the video for "Jump" conflated the tensions that led to his departure. The video was produced by Robert Lombard, who wanted to show the personal side of the band on stage. Roth, however, wanted the performance intercut with footage of him in various hedonistic pursuits, so they shot him doing things like riding a motorcycle and getting arrested while wearing nothing but a towel. Lombard edited the video and used none of the extra Roth footage, taking it to Eddie and Alex for approval. Two days later, the band's manager fired him for bypassing Roth; Lombard says he never received the award the video won from MTV.

Now take a trip back 30 years to 1984 with us here...