We have something very special for the last day of “Fair Warning Week”, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Van Halen’s fourth album.
In front of your naked steaming eyes–David Lee Roth’s original hand-written lyric sheets! These contain the original (but not final) lyrics for all four songs contained on “side A” of Van Halen’s Fair Warning album. These are from VHND.com’s archives and have never been seen anywhere before! They’ve been tucked away in a folder since early 1981 and we are very happy to be sharing them with fellow fans.
Note that the working title of “Sinner’s Swing” was “Get Out And Push” and from these papers we are able to decipher a couple lyrics that most fans interpreted incorrectly from the album:
Actual lyrics at 1:01:
“I may burn my fingers, want my iron in that fire” (Not “I’ll eat with my fingers”)
Actual lyrics at 2:19:
“Wearin’ out my welcome, guess I better save my breath” (not “Guess I better say my prayers”)
Can you spot all of the changes that Roth made to the lyrics by the time he recorded the vocals?
More of Roth’s hand-written lyrics from Fair Warning will be featured in a future VHND story.
