Listening Booth – Van Halen, “Crossing Over”

This track won a coveted spot on one of my mixtapes back in 2007, and I’m bringing it back again.  It’s a gem of a song from the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen, although you wouldn’t know it from how it was marketed (it wasn’t).  It’s the brooding and emotional “Crossing Over”, a b-side from the Balance album.

The whole song is very atypical of the era, which makes sense since it was written by Eddie while David Lee Roth was still in the band.  But to his credit, Sammy does a fine job here.  The payoff is the extended outro/fade.

Here’s “Crossing Over”, via YouTube.