10 Worst Hard Rock Lyrics Of All Time
9. Why Can't This Be Love - Van Halen
It takes a special kind of rock band to recover from a lead singer change like Van Halen did. After David Lee Roth took all of his charisma out the door after the album 1984, Sammy Hagar stepped up to the plate and kickstarted a whole new era for these rockers on 5150. That's not to say that there weren't a few rough edges along the way though.
It almost feels strange putting something like Why Can't This Be Love on here, considering how great a tune it is in VH's back catalog. Compared to the more balls to the wall material from Roth, this proto-ballad brought a lot more depth to this new lineup. We do have a little bit of a turd in the punchbowl here though, that being the second verse. When talking about the dangers of rushing into a relationship, Hagar really coughs it up with the line "only time will tell if we stand the test of time."
Just looking at it on the page looks like a bit of trainwreck, almost like Hagar didn't have enough space to fill out the rest of the verse. Since it's just a passing line though, this was probably just thrown together in the hopes that people wouldn't notice. When you've stuck around long enough though, both the best and the worst in your writing eventually rise to the surface.
Bad Lyric: Only Time Will Tell If We Stand the Test of Time