Does St. Vincent Know She’s Copying David Lee Roth?

On Friday pop and art-rock star St. Vincent will release Todos Nacen Gritando, a re-recording of her seventh LP All Born Screaming, which was launched earlier this year.

The big difference is that she’s removed her original English language lyrics and replaced them with Spanish ones – an idea that she said came to her after performing in Latin America and experienced fans passionately singing back her words. “I asked myself, ‘If they’re able to sing in a second or third language, why can’t I do the same thing?’” she explained.

She went on to admit: “It’s been a much more complicated process than anything I’ve done before” – something that perhaps David Lee Roth can sympathize with, since he tried the same thing 38 years ago.

READ MORE: Was David Lee Roth’s Solo Band a Bid to Kick Van Halen’s Ass?

The story goes that, following the success of his debut solo album Eat ‘Em and Smile, bassist Billy Sheehan mentioned to Roth that native Spanish speakers were a large and largely untapped fanbase. As a result, Roth went back to the studio armed with rewritten words and came back with Sonrisa Salvaje – “Wild Smile.”

“I went to junior high and high schools that were 95 percent black and Spanish-speaking,” Roth said in 2002. “I can gang-sign the whole alphabet; I speak fluent Spanish and Portuguese. I have a fascination for south of the border, anything rhythmic.”

But in fact, rhythmic elements were part of the reason his reboot didn’t go down well. Some of his attempts to match English with Spanish equivalents saw him resorting to what some reviewers called cod language.

“Roth’s voice sounds disconnected from the music, floating in a sterile space above the band,” Allmusic’s Fred Beldin wrote at the time. “Also, the Spanish words don’t always fit seamlessly, sometimes hanging awkwardly over the edges of musical passages… particularly in La Calle Del Tabaco (Tobacco Road), betraying the compositions’ English language origins.”

David Lee Roth – ‘La Calle del Tabaco’ (‘Tobacco Road’)

St. Vincent recently noted: “There are things that I sing in Spanish that maybe I would feel self-conscious singing in English because they feel so sincere… it was a fascinating experience to find how to convey the feeling, but also discover a new way through words.”

Should David Lee Roth Revisit ‘Sonrisa Salvaje’?

While Roth is known for voraciously consuming new cultures and experiences, it seems he didn’t fully grasp that enormity. “I take Spanish lessons twice a week, I read a book a week, I subscribe to 40 or 50 magazines a month,” he explained. “[T]here’s never a lack of… ‘Okay, what community are we interested in this week? What are we gonna have for dinner?’ Let me count the ways.”

Allmusic allowed: “[A]ny fan of Diamond Dave will appreciate this novelty and the gung-ho spirit that fueled its conception.” But Sonrisa Salvaje remains a dead-end in Roth’s adventurous career. In the 21st century it’s unlikely St. Vincent’s project will suffer the same fate – maybe Dave should give it another try.

Hear David Lee Roth Perform ‘Yankee Rose’ in Spanish