Sammy Hagar’s new song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” pulls inspiration from a dream he had where he reunited with his late bandmate Eddie Van Halen.
In 2022, Hagar recounted being greeted by Van Halen in a dream where they got together and made a new track.
The resulting song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” was released Friday via Big Machine Rock. Of the release, his first since signing with the label, Hagar said the new song “is my final bow to that part of my life.”
“It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank you — with love, with respect and with one hell of a guitar solo,” he added in a statement. “Joe [Satriani] brought in that big, emotional, guitar-driven energy that feels like Eddie’s spirit but is entirely of Joe’s creation. With Michael Anthony’s thundering bass and stellar Van Halen-esque background vocals and Kenny Aronoff’s relentlessly powerful driving rhythms, the song really came together on all levels.”
It’s been almost three years since the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer introduced the idea for the track, with its lyrics directly referencing his now infamous dream. “Standing right there in front of me / like he’d never been gone / over in a corner we wrote this song / coming out of a dream / trying to hold onto that melody / another dream becomes a reality,” he sings over the rock track.
“About two months ago, I had this dream and Eddie [Van Halen] came,” Hagar first recounted to Ultimate Classic Rock in 2022. “It was just like he’d been gone. It was not like he was passed, but he had just been out of my life and we hadn’t seen each other for a while. He’s going, ‘Man, let’s write some music!’ I said, ‘Yeah, fuck it, man. Here, let’s go!’”
Hagar co-wrote the song alongside Joe Satriani, who produced the track with Hagar and Eric Caudieux.
Watch the lyric video below.
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