A Van Halen Comparison

When Tattoo was released early yesterday morning fans were quick to point out that the song seemed like it was based upon a track that they had originally written in 1977 called 'Down In Flames'.

A few very rough live versions have appeared on the internet in the past few years, so here's a comparison so that you can see which bits the band have updated and changed

Here's Down In Flames (Ignore the footage in this video - it's a performance of a different song altogether):

And here's the new single:

The story goes that Wolfgang Van Halen was the one who originally suggesting trawling through the band's old demo tapes for unreleased material that they could update and finish off. 

Last year Sammy Hagar told Rolling Stone Magazine that he had heard rumours that the album was made up of this old material

"I mean stuff from before I even joined the band," Hagar said. "Ed and Dave didn't actually write new songs. They took old stuff from previous sessions, and then maybe Dave had to go in and add vocals because they just had scat vocals, or even no vocal part at all."

(Rolling Stone)