Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)

"Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)"
Single by Van Halen
from the album Balance
Released	1995
Recorded	1994
Genre	Hard rock, heavy metal
Length	5:56
Label	Warner Bros.
Writer(s)	Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, Sammy Hagar
Producer	Bruce Fairbairn

"Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)" is a rock song written by the group Van Halen for their 1995 album Balance. It is one of five singles issued for the album, and was the only one to reach #1 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, where it stayed for three weeks. The song is written about Kurt Cobain's suicide, referenced in the lyrics about whether "Is it right to take the easy way" and ends with "I can't tell you what's right for you" and a bridge, repeated towards the end of the song, of "I see the damage done, yeah/oh lord, I heard the shotgun." [1]

Sammy Hagar says in his autobiography that he wanted the song to be uplifting, for the chorus to be 'I wanna show you what love can do', but that his relationship with the Van Halen brothers was becoming strained and that they were very critical of the lyrical treatment, wanting something with more attitude. Hagar says he believes that people in trouble can be saved, that Cobain could have been saved by the people around him, but that they must have just 'let him go for some reason'. He wanted the song to be about hope, not what it eventually became due to internal criticism.

Video

The video tells of the young husband from the video of Can't Stop Lovin' You during his prison sentence. The scenes show him and his friend doing a store robbery, along with his arrest, sentence to prison, his works there, activities and his brawl with an Asian inmate. His victims are also shown along with neon signs saying the attacks they survived such as that of gunshot, drive-by, sexual assault, knifing, and more while the band is shown playing the song.