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Two and a half hours of David Lee Roth dancing to the O’Jays’ ‘Love Train’
11.30.2018
07:51 am
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David Lee Roth’s preferred method of warming up his larynx in the recording studio or the dressing room is singing along with the O’Jays’ hit “Love Train,” and bless him, he does a credible job. The careers of lesser talents have been irreparably wrecked by lines like “All of you brothers over in Africa,” not a welcome series of words in a white pop star’s mouth; it doesn’t take much imagination to see how things could go terribly, terribly wrong. But somehow, with the alchemical mixture of guilelessness and chutzpah that makes a David Lee Roth performance so wondrous to behold, he pulls it off. Nor is it a fluke. Below, like an expert skipper, DLR pilots the S.S. Fair Warning by the tune’s parlous shoals no fewer than 50 times. 

Six years ago, around the time Van Halen released their first new LP with Roth singing since 1984, the singer presented this gift to the fans: a two-and-a-half-hour video of his “Love Train” warmup routine called 50 Rides on the Love Train. On screen, Roth dances, manically, to “Love Train,” in full, on 50 separate occasions; on the soundtrack, he sings along with the O’Jays’ hymn to a comity of peoples 50 different times. Each version is the same, and each version is different. If you start to feel like you’re going insane around, say, the one-hour mark, focus on the counter in the bottom right corner of the frame and breathe deeply.

For me, 50 Rides on the Love Train completes the trilogy begun with 1986’s triple-LP radio show David Lee Roth’s 4th of July Bar-B-Que and continued on 2002’s vidstravaganza No Holds Bar-B-Que. I hope it helps you reach closure, too.
 

H/T Jessica Espeleta

Posted by Oliver Hall
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11.30.2018
07:51 am
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People all over the world start a ‘Love Train’
11.26.2011
03:40 am
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image
 
Now more than ever!

People all over the world
Join hands
Start a love train, love train
People all over the world
Join hands
Start a love train, love train
The next stop that we make will be England
Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too
Don’t you know that it’s time to get on board
And let this train keep on riding, riding on through

All of you brothers over in Africa
Tell all the folks in Egypt, and Israel, too
Please don’t miss this train at the station
‘Cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you

Don’t you know that it’s time to get on board
And let this train keep on riding, riding on through

People all over the world (you don’t need no money)
Join hands (come on)
Start a love train, love train (don’t need no ticket, come on)
Start a love train, love train”

Thanks to Mick Stadium for turning us on to this rare promo clip for The Ojay’s immortal and always relevant “Love Train.”
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.26.2011
03:40 am
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