“Love Walks In” by Van Halen

The first song Van Halen ever wrote with Sammy Hagar was a power ballad: "Love Walks In", which in 1986 became the third single lifted from 5150, the band's seventh album. Hagar sings lead and plays guitar, acoustic included, and shares the writing credit with Michael Anthony and Alex and Eddie Van Halen; Mick Jones and Donn Landee produced it with the band. The words came to Hagar on the spot, and he cut the vocal live, mic in hand.

Behind it sits one of Hagar's stranger convictions: he has said he is a firm believer in life from beyond this planet, and that he has felt it reach out to him three or four times. Billboard called it a "tricky little tune" that moves "from hard-rock swagger to a graceful chorus hook", and it climbed to number 4 on the Mainstream Rock chart and 22 on the Hot 100.

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