{"id":232509,"date":"2025-09-17T00:05:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232509\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T00:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:05:32","slug":"remember-when-michael-mcdonald-helped-van-halen-finish-writing-a-track-from-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232509\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember When: Michael McDonald Helped Van Halen Finish Writing a Track From &#8216;1984&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/americansongwriter.com\/tag\/van-halen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Van Halen<\/a>\u00a0was working on their sixth album,\u00a01984, the band was stuck on one track: \u201cI\u2019ll Wait.\u201d Producer Ted Templeman, who worked with <a href=\"https:\/\/americansongwriter.com\/tag\/michael-mcdonald\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Michael McDonald<\/a> when he was in the Doobie Brothers, asked if he would help work through the song with Van Halen. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cTed Templeman called me up and said, \u2018Hey, these guys have a track and they need some lyrics, so I mentioned you could do it and they said fine, so why don\u2019t you come down?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ultimateclassicrock.com\/michael-mcdonald-van-halen-ill-wait\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">remembered McDonald<\/a>. \u201cHe sent me the track, and I got some ideas going so I\u2019d have something when I got to the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McDonald added, \u201cI met David Lee Roth at Ted\u2019s office. That was \u2026 an interesting experience. He kinda liked what I had going, so we sat there in the office with the demo playing on a cassette recorder, singing lines and melodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/americansongwriter.com\/the-writers-block-the-doobie-brothers-on-songwriting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">[RELATED: The Writer\u2019s Block: Michael McDonald, Tom Johnston, and Patrick Simmons on 50 Years of Songwriting With the Doobie Brothers]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-expand=\"600\" viewbox=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/VanHalen_1984.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-9004111231363713\"\/>Photo of Van Halen, Circa 1984  (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">After some tweaks, McDonald worked his magic on the Van Halen track, and \u201cI\u2019ll Wait\u201d went to No. 13 and peaked at No. 2 on the Mainstream Rock Chart.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve got me captured, I\u2019m under your spell<br \/>I guess I\u2019ll never learn<br \/>I have your picture, yes, I know it well<br \/>Another page is turned<\/p>\n<p>Are you for real? It\u2019s so hard to tell<br \/>From just a magazine<br \/>Yeah, you just smile, and the picture sells<br \/>Look what that does to me<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll wait \u2019til your love comes down<br \/>I\u2019m coming straight for your heart<br \/>No way you can stop me now<br \/>As fine as you are<\/p>\n<p>I wrote a letter and told her these words<br \/>That meant a lot to me<br \/>I never sent it, she wouldn\u2019t have heard<br \/>Her eyes don\u2019t follow me<\/p>\n<p>Credits<\/p>\n<p>For years, McDonald\u2019s consgiwritng credit was left off 1984 until the album was remastered and reissued years later. The song is credited to McDonald, Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Michael Anthony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess they thought I was Santa Claus because I had to go chasing them a little bit on that one,\u201d recalled McDonald. \u201cIt\u2019s probably one of the most-played things I\u2019ve ever written, just because it\u2019s Van Halen. That album sold three or four million copies right away, which was a really big deal at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Photo: David Redfern\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When\u00a0Van Halen\u00a0was working on their sixth album,\u00a01984, the band was stuck on one track: \u201cI\u2019ll Wait.\u201d Producer Ted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":232510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[125284,171,125285,975,67,132,68,83712],"class_list":{"0":"post-232509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-doobie-brothers","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-michael-mcdonald","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-van-halen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115216720139994660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}