Women and Children First

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Template:Album infobox Women and Children First is the third album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1980 (see 1980 in music). It basically continues the trends laid out on the first two albums, relying on the vocals of David Lee Roth and the guitar playing of Eddie Van Halen.

This is the first Van Halen album to feature all original band compositions. The opener, "And the Cradle Will Rock...", begins with what sounds like guitar chords, but is, in fact, a phase shifter-effected Wurlitzer electric piano played through Van Halen's legendary 1960's model 100-watt Marshall Plexi amplifier.

"Everybody Wants Some!!" was featured in the 1985 comedy Better Off Dead, during a sequence featuring dancing claymation hamburgers and french fries.

"Could This Be Magic?" contains the only female backing vocal ever recorded for a Van Halen song — Nicolette Larson sings during some of the choruses.

The album contains a hidden track at the end of "In a Simple Rhyme," a brief instrumental piece entitled "Growth." It was supposed to start the band's next album, Fair Warning, but this did not occur.