“Finish What Ya Started” by Van Halen

"Finish What Ya Started" nearly missed the boat. OU812, Van Halen's 1988 album, was supposedly wrapped up when a riff hit Eddie Van Halen in the small hours, at 2 a.m., and he went to show it to his neighbor at the time, Sammy Hagar. The two of them sat out on Hagar's balcony with guitars until the song was finished, and Hagar stayed up afterwards writing the lyrics, which he summed up as a song about sexual frustration.

It's a loose, back-porch strut rather than a fret-burning showcase. Eddie plugged a Stratocaster straight into the mixing desk, and Hagar plays rhythm on a Gibson acoustic, one of just two Van Halen tracks with him on rhythm guitar. Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen round it out, Donn Landee co-produced with the band, and Andy Morahan's video put them in front of a plain white backdrop cut with shots of dancing women.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.