Así Es La Vida (That’s Life)

Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has the needle down on a record that still makes us grin every time it comes around. David Lee Roth is singing "Así Es La Vida (That's Life)," the closer on his 1986 album Sonrisa Salvaje, and if you have ever heard the English version you already know the swagger. Same band, same punch, same Vegas-lounge horns riding a hard-rock backbeat. Only this time Diamond Dave is working in Spanish, and the whole thing feels like a dare he was happy to take. You can catch the rest of the freeform set, and a whole lot of other deep cuts, over at THE ZOO.

Sonrisa Salvaje is the Spanish-language twin of Eat 'Em and Smile, the solo debut Roth cut after he left Van Halen. The English album landed in July 1986 on Warner Bros., produced by Ted Templeman, with Steve Vai on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass, and Gregg Bissonette on drums. It went platinum. Then somebody in that band got a wild idea. Sheehan had read a magazine piece saying more than half the population of Mexico was between 18 and 27, prime record-buying age. His pitch was simple. Why not put Spanish vocals on the same tracks and walk into a market that had never heard Roth in its own language? Roth, who never met a stunt he did not want to lead, said yes. He re-cut every vocal with a Spanish tutor in the studio, and he softened some of the racier lines so the record would not ruffle a more conservative audience. The music underneath stayed put, with one small exception: "Big Trouble," retitled "En Busca de Pleito," ends cold instead of fading the way the English take does. "Así Es La Vida" sits in the last slot, same place "That's Life" occupies on the original, clocking in at about two minutes and forty-five seconds.

The song itself is a cover of the Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon number Frank Sinatra turned into a signature in 1966. On the English album it was released as a single in November 1986 and became a minor hit, with a video that stitched together clips from Roth and Van Halen clips and got heavy rotation. Roth leaned into the ringmaster bit. He had already put lounge standards on the Crazy from the Heat EP, so a Sinatra tune at the end of a Vai-and-Sheehan record was not a left turn. It was the point. Chuck Klosterman later wrote that Roth butchers "That's Life" and that it still makes perfect sense, because if Dave is not the hair-metal Sinatra, who is? The Spanish lyric keeps the same spine. Riding high in March, shot down in April, no plans to change course, triumph coming in June. He has been poor, a pirate, a clown, a poet, a pawn and a king. When everything looks like it is going from bad to worse, he gets his strength back and fights harder. The last image is the one that fits him: if a day does not seem worth it anymore, he does not look back, he just takes off. On the Spanish album he even closes the whole record with a satisfied little chuckle, like a man who knows he just did something nobody else on the hard-rock block would try.

The reception was another story. Roth told The A.V. Club in 2002 that he had gone to junior high and high schools that were overwhelmingly Black and Spanish-speaking, that he spoke fluent Spanish and Portuguese, and that he had a fascination for anything rhythmic south of the border. The tutor and the bravado did not save the lyric sheet. Spanish-speaking listeners heard what got nicknamed gringo Spanish. Rhino later used that same phrase. Lines sat awkwardly on phrases written for English, and AllMusic's Fred Beldin noted that the new vocals sometimes float above the band instead of locking in, especially on the Tobacco Road remake, "La Calle del Tabaco." Sheehan has said the album was not well received and that any talk of more Spanish versions got dropped. Sonrisa Salvaje, which translates as wild smile, came out on vinyl and cassette, then got deleted almost immediately. A CD did not show up until 2007. For years it was a crate-digger's rumor, the kind of record a DJ pulls out to prove the station still digs past the hits.

That is exactly why the Zoo Crew keeps it in the box. The English "That's Life" is the one most folks know. "Así Es La Vida" is the cousin that got lost in the warehouse. Same Steve Vai runs, same Sheehan bass, same Bissonette pocket, and a frontman treating a standard like a carnival booth. Roth has always said you do not need to speak the language to know what he is selling. On this track he tested that claim in public, lost the commercial bet, and left behind a record that still sounds like him. The album title was not an accident. A wild smile is the whole act.

How he got there starts a long way from Pasadena backyards. David Lee Roth was born October 10, 1954, in Bloomington, Indiana, the son of an ophthalmologist. Summers he spent with his uncle Manny Roth, who ran the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village, the room where Bob Dylan and a lot of other folk and rock hopefuls got their first real audience. The family moved to the Pasadena area in the early 1960s. Roth attended The Webb Schools and then John Muir High School. His parents sent him to a psychiatrist for a few years because of daily hyperactivity they called monkey time, and he spent a stretch on a horse ranch for troubled teens. He has said early favorites included Al Jolson and Ray Charles, which tells you the showman and the soul singer were both in the mix before the high kicks.

In his late teens he sang with an R&B-leaning rock band called the Red Ball Jets, named partly for the red dye in candy that set off those monkey hours, and partly for a sneaker brand of the era. Guitarist Gary "Hurricane" Taylor, drummer Dan Hernandez, and the Komora brothers rounded out the group. Across town, a trio called Mammoth, Alex Van Halen on drums and Eddie Van Halen singing and playing guitar, sometimes rented the Red Ball Jets' PA for ten dollars a night. Roth failed a couple of auditions, then got the gig. He has said the name change to Van Halen was his idea, a moniker with the same long-haul feel as Santana. Michael Anthony came in on bass. By the mid-1970s they were the loudest backyard and club band in the San Gabriel Valley. Gene Simmons caught a show and paid for a demo. Warner Bros. signed them, and the 1978 debut did the rest. Roth stayed through 1984, left at the top, cut Crazy from the Heat, then built the Eat 'Em and Smile band that made both the English record and Sonrisa Salvaje. The Spanish album is a footnote in most tellings. On this station it is a feature.

If you want the man himself, his official site is David Lee Roth, where the tour dates and the current band live. He keeps an official Facebook page at David Lee Roth on Facebook, an Instagram at davidleeroth, and an X account at @DavidLeeRoth. Fans comparing notes on old shows and the deep catalog gather in the David Lee Roth Fan Page group. We checked those doors and they open. Bring the Sonrisa Salvaje story with you. Most rooms still have not heard "Así Es La Vida," and that is half the fun of spinning it.