The 'flue

Hot For Teacher - Van Halen
Perhaps yesterday's SotD was a little too old school. Let's dial the Way Back Machine™ to early 1984, just after the release of the Van Halen album MCMLXXXIV ("1984"). "Van Who?" you say? The band out of Pasadena, California that was formed in 1972 by brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen. After adding a singer (David Lee Roth who the brothers were going to rent sound equipment from, but decided to save some money by letting Roth join the band) and a bass player (Michael Anthony) the band had to ditch their original name, "Mammoth." The self-titled debut album hit #19 on the Billboard pop music charts, one of rock's most commercially successful debuts.

Since then Van Halen has gone on to sell over 80 million albums, have had the most number-one hits on Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and during the 1980s had more Billboard Hot 100 hits than any other hard rock or heavy metal band. According to the Record Industry Association of America (also known as 'The Evil Empire' in some parts) Van Halen is the 19th best-selling band/artist of all time with sales of over 56 million albums in the U.S. There have been break-ups, reunions, hiatuses and line-up changes along with all the drama that a rock band could generate Van Halen are still kind-of sort-of around. Kind of.

Today's song takes us back to the days of big hair, hanging out at the mall and Converse high tops. With kids heading back to school it seems only right to have Van Halen singing about having a crush on a teacher. THis was way back in the day when MTV showed videos. What seems strange today, in a time of teachers constantly engaging in 'extra curricular activities' (IF you know what I mean) this song now comes across as naive. Or was it a song predicting the future? Okay, now I'm freaking out a little.

Listen to a sample at the iTunes Store

I had that dream again the other night. The one where I ask for suggestions for Songs of the Day and suddenly my PM mail box is overflowing with quality, well-thought-out responses. Its like 6 or 7 months before I make my way through all of them. I am so very happy. The sky seems bluer, our children better behaved. Heck, my hair even starts growing back. And then I wake up and our clock radio is in pieces all over the bedroom floor.