“Could This Be Magic?” is the 8th track from Women and Children First.
The song was used as a b-side on a few versions of the “And The Cradle Will Rock…” single.
Perhaps to suggest they were floating out towards Hawaii, Ted Templeman handed Eddie a bottleneck and told him to try playing slide—something he had never even tried before this. He practiced it for a few days, but really didn’t know how he’d play the song until the time came. Dave accompanied Eddie by playing acoustic rhythm guitar. Not even bothering to re-tune the guitar, they recorded it in one take, after a few goes at working it out. Roth, who Eddie once said, ‘plays guitar somewhat’, accompanies him on acoustic guitar.
The song was recorded one rainy evening in Los Angeles when the bay doors at Sunset Sound Recorders were opened to capture the sound of the rain that tinkles away in the background as an accompaniment to the loose and boozy feel of the song. The female voice that appears for one harmony line after the guitar break is provided by the late Nicolette Larson (best known for her vocal work on Neil Young’s Comes A Time album). She was another of Ted Templeman’s artists at Warner Bros. This was the first time an outside artist had appeared on a Van Halen recording.
In 1978, Eddie returned the favor by making a guest appearance on Nicolette’s album, Nicolette (produced by Ted Templeman and engineered by Donn Landee) and is listed as “?” in the album’s credits.
The band decided to record the sound in stereo using two Neuman KM84 microphones, and added it to the track. The band tossed around the idea of having a horse sounding off or a cow mooing at the end of the track.
This song prepared Eddie for the next song on which he used a slide: Fair Warning’s “Dirty Movies”.
David Lee Roth’s hand-written lyrics:
