Songoftheday 7/26/15 - I can see that you've got fire in your eyes and pain inside your heart, so many things have come and torn your world apart...

"Give To Live" - Sammy Hagar
from the album I Never Said Goodbye (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (one week)
Weeks in the top-40: 7

Today's SOTD comes from the "Red Rocker" himself, Sammy Hagar, who after scoring a pair of top-40 pop hits in 1984 with "Two Sides Of Love" and "I Can't Drive 55" joined hard rock titans Van Halen after the departure of David Lee Roth. After contributing a song to the Sly Stallone movie Over The Top, "Winner Takes It All", which was a minor pop hit and a #3 rock hit. Still owing another solo album to his former record label, Sammy released his ninth studio set in 1987. With an MTV contest to name the record resulting in I Never Said Goodbye, the first single, "Give To Live", was a more serious choice of single than his normal fare...

Oh, that hair.

"Give To Live" became Sammy's fourth and so-far last top-40 solo pop hit in August of 1987, while landing him his first #1 Mainstream Rock single in Billboard magazine. His follow-up release, "Eagles Fly", was a minor hit on the Hot 100 at #82 (his last solo stint there). Ten years later, after an acrimonious split with Van Halen, Hagar returned to the top of the rock radio list with "Little White Lie". He's had a few more rock hits, most recently with "Things Changed" in 2002 (#35). He reunited with Van Halen again in the mid naughties but that ended even worse. Since then he's concentrated on his solo work, the "Cabo Wabo" resort, and his new band Chickenfoot.

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Here's Sammy performing the song on the Van Halen Right Here Right Now hits tour in 1993...

...and solo in 2000...

Up tomorrow: "Square" rockers are working only for their love.