As we close in on my Top 10 Heart songs, we really start cookin’ with fire (true Heart fans will get that reference.) This upper half of the Top 20 really starts to illuminate the power of their fourth studio album, Dog & Butterfly as well. Surprisingly, one last hit from their big-hair days makes an appearance alongside a couple of classics, and a couple of deep cuts that have some lasting fan-appeal.
#15 Who Will You Run To? – Bad Animals (1987)
written by Diane Warren
If it hasn’t become apparent to the handful of people reading this blog, Heart’s mid to late 80’s mega-hit phase was definitely not my favorite. I hung in there with them, buying their albums, even seeing them in concert, but other than Ann’s outstanding vocals, they were basically playing the role of any pop-rock band out there. Still, just because they used hit-writers to provide their biggest songs, doesn’t mean there weren’t any great songs in that batch, and Diane Warren’s Who Will You Run To? form their ninth studio album, Bad Animals, is definitely my favorite of the batch.
Released as the follow-up fo their #1 smash Alone, Who Will You Run To? shucked the power ballad formula, and went straight to a balls-to-the-wall anthem; rock and roll with an 80’s pop sheen. It kept Heart in the top 10 by climbing all the way to #7 on billboard’s Hot 100.
While I enjoy the chunkiness of the guitars and Howard’s soaring guitar solos, and the heavy driving of the drums, I have to imagine this song would have been completely unremarkable without Ann Willson’s vocals and attitude to power it. Just listen to the very first verse, as she sings, “You’re not sure what you want to do with your live, but you sure don’t want me in it. Yeah you’re sure the life you’re living with me can’t go on one single minute.” You can hear the sneer on Ann’s lips (in fact, in the video, there is definitely a faint hint of a sneer) and the disdain dripping from each word. Then with each couplet before the chorus, she just winds it up and hits it right out of the park. My particular favorite moment is in the second verse with “You can tell the whole world how you’re gonna make it. You can follow you heart but what you do when someone breaks it.” The way she attacks the word world is just glorious. Then she’s got that one crazy ad lib toward the end that comes out of nowhere in the stratosphere… Ann totally own this song and that really is what puts it so high on my list.
I even like the video, despite the fact that it follows the, make sure we keep Ann’s face in tight close-up or shoot her from far away or in shadow so no one can see she’s not skinny, and the let’s have Nancy roll around on the ground with her guitar, trends of the time. The abandoned warehouse setting provides a nice grungy backdrop. Ann looks incredible… her final smile at the end of her closing line is transcendent (she’s probably glad the video shoot is almost over). And I like the way they use five different styles of animation to bring to life the five “bad animal” icons that represent the band members from the Bad Animals album cover. Youtube won’t let me embed the video, so here’s the link https://youtu.be/fM44F-M78Vs. Below is the remastered audio version.
#14 Dog & Butterfly – Dog & Butterfly (1978)
written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sue Ennis
From their very first album, Dreamboat Annie what made Heart special was the way they blended the Led Zeppelin-esque, hard-rock they loved so much and did so well, with folk-influenced acoustic numbers that evoked everything from Tolkien to the Beatles. With their fourth release, the formalized this duality by creating an album (this was back when we listened to records and we had an A-side and a B-side) with a rock & roll side, they titled “Dog,” and an acoustic side they titled, “Butterfly.” The album beautiful encapsulated the duality of the band, even allowing for some songs to transcend the categories and incorporate both acoustic balladry and hard-rocking yowling.
The title track, of this fourth album, Dog & Butterfly, is a beautiful example of the finesse and skill at which the Wilson sisters and their writing partner, Sue Ennis, approached this type of balladry. Ann was inspired by watching her dog playing in the backyard by chasing a butterfly as it flitted through the garden. The dog was never able to get close to capturing the butterfly, but she never gave up, she just kept trying. Ann turned that into one of Heart’s most enduring ballads about just keeping at it, not giving up. Dog & Butterfly also features some of Heart’s finest lyrics, and Nancy’s delicious, 12-string acoustic picking and ethereal harmonies are in top form. I also loved the flanged electric piano… flangers were so big in the late 70’s/early 80’s.
After a string of hard-rocking hits, Heart released Dog & Butterfly as the second single off the album. Apparently the broader audience who fell in love with Barracuda and Crazy On You weren’t quite ready for a Heart ballad, but it still charted a respectable #34 on Billboard‘s Hot 100, and #33 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. Despite this, Dog & Butterfly has remained a staple in most Heart concert set-lists. I’ve included the studio versio off the 1978 album, and a live version performed by the two sisters in 2002. I love the emotions in Ann’s voice. She’s just incredible.
#13 Magic Man – Dreamboat Annie (1975)
written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson
And here come some of the classics. Magic Man is Heart’s first song to catch radio’s attention in Canada, but it’s probably not the first Heart song I ever heard, and least knowing who or what I was listening to. I first discovered Heart when my brother bought the Little Queen album, which was their second release in the States. By then, I was familiar with Barracuda from the radio, and I fell in love with the album, sneaking it out of his room frequently to listen to it. When I found out they had an earlier album, I did go out and buy Dreamboat Annie myself, and promptly fell in love with it as well. Two tracks on that album were familiar to me, Crazy on You and Magic Man, but only as songs I knew I had heard on the radio before. Crazy on You was actually released first in the U.S., and cracked the Top 40, but Magic Man was quickly released as the follow-up single and it climbed all the way to #9 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 singles.
Kicking off the album with that chunky rhythm and a rip-roaring guitar lick that is actually recorded backwards, the song is instantly enthralling. It’s a bit of a trippy song about a young woman who falls in love with a man who seems to cast a spell over her. Ann’s vocals are powerful and assured, but there is also a naivety and innocence there that you rarely hear from the singer. Ann wrote the song about her then boyfriend, Mike Fisher, who started as one of the band’s guitarists, and went on to become their manager and sound engineer. Ann followed him to Canada when he moved there to avoid being drafted. The lines about her Mama begging her to come home reflected Ann’s real mother who helped keep her daughter grounded while she was under the “spell” of this “magic man.” Without the context of the song, it can be interpreted as a man preying on a younger, innocent girl/woman, and perhaps there is a little bit of that taken from reality, but the two shared a lengthy relationship, and many of Ann’s songs were inspired by Fisher.
Instrumentally the song is powerful and pretty amazing. It really shows off the guitar work and interplay between Roger Fisher and Howard Leese. The two trade guitar solos throughout the song, and Nancy’s powerful acoustic guitar adds a lot of texture. Magic Man is also remembered for the minimoog synthesizer solo Howard throws in at the end of a nearly two-minute instrumental break. In fact the extended guitar solos are cut out of the single version , which is really a shame, but coming in at over five minutes, that was too long for singles radio. I’ve included the original audio track from the album so you can really hear the nuance of the music, but I’ve also included a live version with the original Heart line-up to really see them perform this classic.
#12 Cook with Fire – Dog & Butterfly (1978)
written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Roger Fisher, Sue Ennis, Howard Leese
While Dog & Butterfly was Heart’s fourth album, it was the first “new” album by the band that I bought, and I was really excited when it was released. And when I put the needle down on track one, with the crowd cheering in the background and the announcer welcoming Heart to the stage to the pounding of tribal drumbeats, I went nuts. I found out years later with the release of the remastered CD that the song was recorded in the studio and the crowd was overlaid to give it a live feel, which was a little disappointing.
Cook with Fire is a great opener, a get-em-up-on-their feet song with really great, heavy drum work, stellar rock & roll vocals from Ann, and how fun was it to hear Nancy killing it on the harmonica. Some nice bass work and guitar licks really round out the sound, and let you know, as in a lot of their early work, that this is a band, not just the Wilson sisters, but an accomplished, and talented rock & roll band. It’s really quite a straightforward rock & roll song, but it really gets me going. Love the bridge, I think the lyrics are fun, and again, Ann’s vocals kill it. I lover Roger Fisher’s subtle guitar solo too. And the way Nancy’s harmonicas fills in so beautifully. Plus, this was opener on their 1979 Dog & Butterfly tour, which happened to be my first ever rock & roll concert. When the drums started pounding and they came running out on stage, it was like I was transported to another world. The first of hundreds of amazing concerts throughout my life
I leave you with the psuedo-live album version, and a live version from 2010 so you can see how they changed things up and let Ann do a little flutework in place of the harmonica!
11 – Mistral Wind – Dog & Butterfly (1978)
written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sue Ennis, Roger Fisher
From here on out, I had a lot of trouble ranking these amazing Heart songs. I so wanted to get Mistral Wind into the top 10, but that tail-shaking filly sitting at #10 just wouldn’t move out of the way, not even for a storm whipped up by a mistral wind! Even so Mistral Wind, the Dog & Butterfly closing track, and a high point of any Heart concert at which it’s performed is truly one of Heart’s best songs. The way the song is structured is perfect, the dynamics, the calm, gentle, acoustic opening that whirls into the tempestuous mid-section, then winds back down to a gentle outro… it’s quite the piece. A fitting number as well to be the final Heart song that featured Roger Fisher, and boy, does it ever. Perhaps the stormy relationships in the band that were ending were channelled through this song. Nancy and Roger ended their relationship, and Ann and Michael Fisher ended theirs as well. Sure to shake up the dynamic of any band.
A mistral wind is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. In the song, quite clearly, the singer is a sailor, and her lover is represented by the mistral wind, it helps power her and move her, but it can also roar into a tempest that can take control for better or for worse. Heart uses the lyrics to create the three-part structure of the song, with Nancy’s excellent acoustic guitar work powering the first section. When Michael DeRosier’s powerful drums kick in around the 2:30 minute mark, you know a storm has struck. Roger’s dizzying guitar licks that swarm around Ann between each line perfectly capture the storm tossing his lover across the stormy seas. Howard’s moog synthesizer lends an ominous quality as the music starts to calm and Nancy’s acoustic guitar starts to take over again. DeRosier’s incredible drum fills representing the last gasps of the fading storm. Then, I swear, at the 5:00 minute mark, the music so perfectly represents the sun breaking through the storm clouds I can see it in my mind. A couple last lingering crashes of thunder before the wind dies and the seas is calm again.
Ann’s vocals. I didn’t even mention Ann’s vocals as they just go beyond human understanding in this song. Gentle, soothing, angelic to start, then building to banshee-like wails as the storm overcomes her. It’s pretty incredible vocal work, and fits the song exquisitely. Nancy Wilson said, “In many ways, this is the ultimate Heart song. It’s very visual and a lot of care was put into painting a musical landscape that described the words.” She also noted that it was one of her favorites from Dog & Butterfly because it dealt with “love, inspiration, and insanity all at the same time.” So very true. It’s also a beautiful homage to their inspirations, Led Zeppelin.
I couldn’t decide which live version to leave you with in addition to the original studio track. There are two that really stand out. I chose the 2002, Live in Seattle recording, because I think Ann sounds the best, and there’s a nice energy to the performance, but I also highly recommend the 2007, Dreamboat Annie Live show, which has a nice string section accompanying them. The link to that video is https://youtu.be/VQdPKMS9V4U.
Next stop… Top 10!