Best Songs Ever

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“Unchained” is a song from Van Halen’s fourth album, Fair Warning. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen wrote the main riff at 4:00 in the morning with engineer Donn Landee while they were doing some overdubbing on the album. The song features prominent use of the MXR M-117 flanger, which became a popular sound. A preset for the flanger setting was included on the EVH Flanger MXR. It uses a drop-C♯ tuning with suspended fourth chords interspersed. The song is also notable for being producer Ted Templeman’s only vocal contribution to the band when he says “Come on, Dave, gimme a break!“ during the interlude of the song. One theory is that he thought David Lee Roth was getting too obnoxious and he jumped in. The band liked the way it sounded and kept it in the song. However, Van Halen... Read on...