Songoftheday 4/13/12 - I don't believe you, you must be true, no one can look as good as you..

Van Halen - "(Oh) Pretty Woman"
from the album Diver Down (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Roy "The Big O" Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" was his biggest hit, staying at #1 for three weeks. Almost twenty years later, hard rock stalwarts Van Halen sent it back onto the pop chart.

California rockers Van Halen's fifth LP marked the last point of them being hard rock silly boys before their pop breakthrough success in 1984. Even though at the time Diver Down was their biggest success, being their first top-3 record, and the first single, a cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" becoming their highest charting pop single as yet, the album was really treading water, with almost half the songs being covers, including the two singles released from it (the other will be coming up later on).

The most notable thing about their remake of Orbison's song (arguably his most rockin' number), is their big-idea video, which was banned by MTV for its opening scene with two midgets restraining a woman, who was really a local drag queen.



Man, did I have the ever-loving hots for Michael Anthony. The video, though, would give the band the experience on creating a hot, fun, silly video that MTV will crave in the next few years.

Tomorrow: Long-haired balladeer be-bops into the decade of love...