Co-writer Michael McDonald told Ultimate Classic Rock:

(Producer) Ted Templeman called me up and said, ‘Hey, these guys have a track and they need some lyrics, so I mentioned you could do it and they said fine, so why don’t you come down?’ He sent me the track, and I got some ideas going so I’d have something when I got to the studio. I met David Lee Roth at Ted’s office. That was, uh, an interesting experience. He kinda liked what I had going, so we sat there in the office with the demo playing on a cassette recorder, singing lines and melodies. It’s probably one of the most-played things I’ve ever written, just because it’s Van Halen. That album sold three or four million copies right away, which was a really big deal at the time.