The Van Halen song written in response to Kurt Cobain’s death

There always seems to be a clear divide between the pre-Nirvana and post-Nirvana sides of rock music. Although many artists may have secured their start before the grunge explosion came out in full force, even the non-hair metal types had difficulty fitting into the world that Kurt Cobain started once the 1990s officially took off. While Van Halen may have been one of the few giants of the industry right before the Seattle scene blew up, Sammy Hagar remembered being shaken to the core when hearing about Cobain’s suicide.

Coming out of 1993, the Nirvana frontman had already been going through his fair share of hangups. After coming out with the more artistic counterpart to Nevermind with In Utero, Cobain was still feeling the immense pressure of having to be in a massive pop band, eventually withdrawing inward into himself when working the stadium-rock circuit.

By the time the group found Cobain had overdosed in Paris, they took a break between two legs of the tour to go home. While the plan was to get Cobain into a rehab facility, he ended up jumping the wall of the building and finding his way back home, after which he was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

For all of the grunge acolytes making their music, this was the equivalent of ‘The Day the Music Died’. After giving so much of himself to the scene, Cobain was gone in an instant, practically turning his back on the fame and leaving a massive hole in the community that would never truly heal.

Although Van Halen had been coming off the massive tour of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge when grunge started to take over the world, Hagar still had a deep respect for the new style of music, eventually bringing out Alice in Chains as one of their opening acts on the accompanying tour.

Once Cobain was found dead, Hagar was already well into the production stages for what would become his final album with the group Balance. Instead of making the traditional love song, Hagar poured his heart out about his grief over losing Cobain on the single, ‘Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do’.

When talking about the track on his YouTube channel, Hagar talked about wanting the song to serve as a sense of hope for the world, saying, “When I heard that Kurt Cobain had taken his own life, the first thing I thought of was I wish I were there and could have tried to save him. The original title for these lyrics were ‘I want to show you what love can do’, but because it was such a dark, horrible thing, I just couldn’t shine a light on it. So I changed the final line to ‘Don’t tell me what love can do.’”

Although the track would become one of the standouts from this era of the band, it did spell the end of Hagar and Eddie Van Halen’s creative partnership, falling out over other pieces like ‘Amsterdam’ on the rest of the record. While the group’s camaraderie couldn’t hold together for much longer, ‘Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do’ is an interesting look into the sensitive side of the hard rockers.