Dirty Water Dog

The working title for this song, from the Van Halen III album, was "Swamp Groove." Eddie and Gary began writing the song when in New York City. The title "Dirty Water Dog" was used because Eddie and Wolfie, while in New York, ate the street vender hot dogs, known as dirty water dogs, every day.

Eddie added a counter rhythm in the intro created by scratching a pool brush on the sidewalk outside the home of engineer Robbes Steiglitz. Robbes followed Eddie with a microphone as the guitarist scratched his way down the walkway.

Sharp-eared listeners will hear the handle fall off the broom. Eddie was unscrewing it while scratching and accidentally dropped it twice. Listen even closer and you'll hear him say "Shit!" though the "t" sound was cut out.

Eddie used a cream Wolfgang prototype with single-coil pickups through a Whammy pedal and an MXR compressor before plugging right into the board on most of this track except the solo, which was performed on a standard Wolfgang through a 5150 amp.

Eddie reused a riff from his appearance on Saturday Night Live, on the song Stompin' 8H, on this track.