Van Halen’s debut album opens with what sounds like an air-raid siren. It’s actually the band members’ own car horns, rigged to a pair of batteries.
That noise kicks off “Runnin’ With the Devil,” the 1978 album’s first track.
Ultimate Classic Rock’s staff ranks it No. 37 among the Top 100 Rock Songs of All Time. The list ran in April 2026.
The site noted how the career-defining album changed the trajectory of the band:
“The opening song on Van Halen’s self-titled debut album signaled a changing of the guard as the ’70s drew to a close. From Eddie Van Halen’s power-drill guitar that opens the song to arena-sized rhythmic heft throughout, “Runnin’ With the Devil” sounds like a menacing storm gathering on the horizon. A new hard rock paradigm was set here.”
Van Halen’s “Jump” also made the list, at No. 77.
That siren-like intro began life as the end of a different song.
How Car Horns Became the Opening of ‘Runnin’ With the Devil’
The band first demoed the song in 1976, with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons producing, per Ultimate Classic Rock. The lyrics drew on the Ohio Players’ 1974 song “Runnin’ From the Devil.”
On the demos, the horns appeared throughout “House of Pain” and formed its ending before segueing into “Runnin’ With the Devil. That detail comes from Guitar World, via the Van Halen News Desk.
The band pulled the horns from their own cars and mounted them in a box. Two car batteries and a foot switch powered the contraption.
Producer Ted Templeman saw potential in the sound, per Guitar World.
“Templeman realized it would make a brilliant attention-getting intro, so he decided to sequence “Runnin with the Devil” as the first song on Van Halen’s debut album,” a passage read.
He slowed the horns down and sequenced “Runnin’ With the Devil” first on the album.
Ultimate Classic Rock’s song history says it “simultaneously altered the trajectory of rock and announced Van Halen’s arrival.”
It came out as a single on May 6, 1978. It peaked at just No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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