Sammy Hagar claims Eddie Van Halen visited him in a dream and they wrote a song together

Sammy Hagar is set to share songwriting credits with Eddie Van Halen on one of his new songs, after the vocalist claimed the late electric guitar legend came to him in a dream to help him compose a new track.

Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock, the former Van Halen vocalist explained the dream-written single, which is titled Thank You, is based on a riff that Eddie Van Halen had shown him before the guitarist passed away.

"I shouldn’t be hyping it now,” Hagar said. “Nobody knows this but Michael Anthony, Jason [Bonham] and Vic [Johnson]. 

"About two months ago, I had this dream and Eddie came. We were in a room like this, [with] a bunch of people around. 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!'"

As per Hagar’s recollection, the pair then "went over into a corner” to piece together the song, which featured a riff similar to “the last lick that Eddie Van Halen showed me, when I went back for the [2004] reunion tour”.

Hagar continued, “I said, 'Eddie, show me your newest shit,' because every time I’d be around him I’d say, 'Show me your newest shit.' He’d say, 'Oh, check this out!'"

“He did this harmonic thing and he slid it up to a chord, like a slide guitar. We wrote a song with that lick.”

The experience clearly made an impression on Hagar, who promptly transformed the dream into a new single. And, owing to Van Halen’s “involvement”, Hagar will also share songwriting credits with his former bandmate.

“I remembered it. I got up in the morning and I wrote the song,” Hagar revealed. “It’s called Thank You. I used the fuckin’ lick that he showed me in the song. I told Jason, 'I just really don’t know what to say lyrically.' 

“I’ve got goosebumps, head to toe, [talking about it]. So I wrote it [about that experience], and we’ll do that song someday.

“Now, that’s going to be an Eddie-influenced song, to the point that I’m going to co-write it with him. I’m going to give him credit and then maybe we’ll donate the money to charity, whatever.

“You see, I feel so embarrassed about it because everyone’s going to say, 'Oh, look at Sammy trying to capitalize on Eddie.' No, I’m not. You don’t understand. This was a real fuckin’ dream, and I told you exactly what happened in it.”

Thank You was pieced together too late to be included in Hagar’s upcoming album Crazy Times, which is due September 30, though by the sounds of it will make its way onto an upcoming offering in the near-future.