The Official Word: Van Halen Tour Kaput

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It looks like David Lee Roth's first tour with Van Halen in twenty-three years won't happen after all. Over the weekend, employees of tour promoters Live Nation were informed that "the Van Halen tour has been shut down." It's not yet clear what went wrong: Just last week, the band released their first official photo of their new line-up to Rolling Stone. At the time, Roth told us that he was thrilled about the tour, and that the reunion could be permanent: "I have hope and faith — and that's more than just the name of a couple of strippers from Albuquerque," he said. Check back here for more VH news as the story unfolds.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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