Van Halen Version
| "Dancing in the Street" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Van Halen | ||||
| from the album Diver Down | ||||
| B-side | "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" | |||
| Released | 1982 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 1982 | |||
| Genre | Synthrock, New Wave | |||
| Length | 3:43 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Writer(s) | Marvin Gaye, Ivy Hunter, William Stevenson | |||
| Producer | Ted Templeman | |||
| Van Halen singles chronology | ||||
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American rock band Van Halen performed a cover of "Dancing in the Street", and released it as the second single from their 1982 album Diver Down. This version features heavy use of a synthesizer, played by Eddie Van Halen. Their version attracted decent commercial success, reaching the top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and becoming a top 15 hit on the Canadian Singles Chart.
Speaking about the cover, group member David Lee Roth said: "It sounds like more than four people are playing, when in actuality there are almost zero overdubs — that's why it takes us such a short amount of time ."
Group member Eddie van Halen, discussing the cover and discussing his synthesizer part in the track, said: "It takes almost as much time to make a cover song sound original as it does writing a song. I spent a lot of time arranging and playing synthesizer on 'Dancing in the Streets,' and they just wrote it off as, 'Oh, it's just like the original.' So forget the critics! These are good songs. Why shouldn't we redo them for the new generation of people?"
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