I think its day #6 of the student blog challenge and the topic of today is music, so I’m going to talk about panama, a song written and preformed by Van Halen.

 

The Song

The song falls under the Heavy Metal and Hard Rock genre and was released June 18, 1984. This song was a pretty big hit in its day peaking at number 13 of the billboard hot 100 in 1984. The reason why I love this song is that it gates you pumped up and I always like to listen to it when I get ready for a hockey game. I also love it because the song is written about cars. The writer of this song, lead singer David Lee Roth said that the main inspiration behind the song was a car that he saw at a race in Las Vegas named the Panama Express. Roth also named his Opel Kadett Panama.

The Opel Kadett                                                   The Panama Express

Roth wrote the song after being accused of only writing about women, partying and fast cars. Realizing that he hadn’t actually wrote about fast cars he decided to write one. In pop culture, the song has been featured in a handful of tv Shows such as the drew Carey show, the movie Superbad and my personal favourite, Family guy. It’s also the song that the St. Lois cardinals play after a win at there home stadium, and it was also featured in Gran Turismo 4, the game that actually introduced me to the song. Personally, its my favourite Van Halen song and always will be because of its story and lyrics.

The Band 

Van Halen was born in Pesadena California in 1974. It was created by guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, Bassist Michael Anthony, and lead singer, David Lee Roth.

Van Halen was a American Rock band, Known for their hard rock and energetic live shows. Van Halen was very well known throughout rock and had many successful albums such as 1984, 5150, Van Halen, and Van Halen 2 to name a few. Both Van Halen brothers were born in Amsterdam, and moved to Pasadena California in 1962. They started off small like any band preforming at high schools and backyard parties under the name of the Broken Combs. They grew in popularity and had a couple of name changes but in 1973 they named their band Van Halen. Their first album, Van Halen reached no. 19 on the billboard pop music charts and was highly regarded as a heavy metal and a rock album. Successful albums followed suck as Van Halen II and the bands first single, dance the night away. The rest is history as they say as Van Halen grew and became the famous and extremely influential rock band as we know them today.

Quiz

I have created a Quiz on Van Halen for anyone who still is reading. All the answers are in this post so anyone can answer them right. The quiz might be updated regularly so if you want to feel free check back and try it again. Good Luck!

Listen to Panama here: