"When It's Love" is a group collaboration on writing, with brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen having composed the music first and Sammy Hagar writing the lyrics afterwards. The song is Van Halen's third biggest hit, after "Jump" (#1) and "Why Can't This Be Love?" (#3). One of the more powerful of power ballads, VH1 put it at #24 on their list of the 25 Greatest Power Ballads.
The album OU812 is a common little text pun (phonetically working out to "Oh, you ate one, too!") that's been bopping around in culture for years. It's on the wall of the set in the TV series Taxi, it's the license plate on the Ferrari in Cheech & Chong's Next Movie, and other such monkeyshines.
Van Halen, rarely known for their deep, meaningful lyrics, turn in a standard job verses-wise here. Let's put it this way: The first line, "Everybody's looking for something," verbatim, also shows up in the songs "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" and Olivia Newton-John's "I'll Bet You A Kangaroo," with countless more "everybody's lookin'" phrases in other songs. Love, apparently, lasts forever and is experienced by two people together, say thousands of other songs as well. Somebody should just make a set of love-song-lyrics refrigerator magnets. We're just pointing out, however, that it's to the band's credit that the lyrics come off as incredibly poignant and thoughtful when set to their distinctive music.
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