“Out The Window” is a short (but epic!) piece of music – or rather, guitar squealing – written and performed by Eddie Van Halen. This track is part of the musical score from the movie The Wild Life, released in 1984. Eddie wrote the entire musical score for the movie, playing guitar with an electronic drum machine. We named this piece “Out The Window” because the main character has to jump out of his girlfriend’s bedroom window to escape detection by her parents.
This piece was also used one year later in Back To The Future, when Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time and pays a visit to his sleeping father (Crispin Glover). Marty McFly, wearing a radiation suit, pulls out a cassette tape labeled “Edward Van Halen.” He places it into a Sony Walkman, straps the headphones onto the unknowing ears of his science fiction loving Dad, and cranks it up, effectively scaring the living daylights out of his father, who upon seeing the young McFly is convinced he is a space traveler from a far off galaxy.
More coming soon! To the frustration of Van Halen fans, The Wild Life’s musical score has never been officially released, and likely never will. However, we have some incredible news – The Van Halen News Desk will be releasing it ourselves, via our Van Halen Vault youtube channel (subscribe here). We’ll be featuring all of Ed’s music from The Wild Life score throughout the coming weeks, one track at a time! These are the full, raw tracks that Eddie recorded, before they were edited for use in the movie. So stay tuned, track #2 is coming soon…