Roy Orbison first recorded this in 1964. Along with "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," "Dancing in the Street," "Big Bad Bill," and "Happy Trails," this was one of 5 covers on the album. Van Halen made an album a year from 1978-1983, and their constant touring made it difficult to write new songs.
The promo clip from this song was the first concept video Van Halen made. With MTV launching on August 1, 1981 and desperate for new rock videos, the network convinced the band's label to make a clip for "Unchained." The band had no interest in videos, but when the producer Robert Lombard put together concert footage to make the "Unchained" clip, the band loved the results and had Lombard to the video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman," which is a tawdry affair. It is very costume-intensive, with David Lee Roth dressed as Napoleon, Eddie Van Halen as a cowboy, Alex Van Halen as Tarzan, and Michael Anthony a Samurai Warrior. The band wanted to be as outrageous as possible, and Lombard obliged, enlisting two midgets and a drag queen to appear in the video, and making sure the band had access to their drugs and alcohol of choice. At the end of the video, the midgets are seen fondling the "woman," who flips her wig to reveal that she is a he. MTV aired the video sparingly, as they didn't want to scare cable companies away with anything too controversial. Speaking about the video in Creem, David Lee Roth said: "What you have is the most overblown, over-the-top home movie ever made. We did it rather like a surrealistic art project, like where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant."
Van Halen recorded this after completing their 1981 "Invasion" tour. They put it out as a single a few months before the album was released.
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