The timeless album Ann and Nancy Wilson agree is a masterpiece: “These songs are wonderful paintings”
Despite being sisters, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on everything, but they both agree that one album is an absolute masterpiece and has been an equal influence in both of their lives.
Heart gained popularity in the 1970s with their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, which showed a mature infusion of hard rock, heavy metal sensibility, and folk-like lyricism, and throughout thick and thin, the two sisters have remained the only consistent members of the band, and, sonically, who better to meld them together than the one and only Joni Mitchell?
Ann Wilson has always been a lover of the emotive singer-songwriter, with her naked honesty and her angelic voice, and she’s gone one step further and picked her favourite of the folk icons, albums. On the 1976 full-length, Hejira, Ann has said: “This album does not age. Rather, it unfolds with time… I love this album like I love a lifelong friend. On Hejira, Joni is a grown woman, a free agent, travelling solo. The songs are full of the rich imagery of the things and people she encounters and interlaced with her poetic, unforgiving introspections.”
Nancy Wilson told Gold Mine Magazine that the very same Mitchell album was one of her top ten favourite albums, too: “Among Joni Mitchell’s masterful albums, this one is my all-time favourite.”
She continued, “This is such a peak moment in Joni’s many poetic confessional works. She paints rich interior landscapes blended with the sweeping travel log of her wanderlust. These songs are wonderful paintings, much like her own paintings.”
The nine-track album is home to some of the most poetic, philosophical Mitchell works. For example, the second track, ‘Amelia’, sees Mitchell ruminate on the importance of personal experience in life, of the disassociative space between life advice and a life well lived; “People will tell you where they’ve gone / They’ll tell you where to go / But ’til you get there yourself, you never really know.”
Heart, too, think in such impossible fantasies, writing a song that could almost be an answer to, or a continuation of, ‘Amelia’ in 1985 on their track, ‘These Dreams’. Within the heartfelt track, which has all the markers of new age pop running through it, Ann sings, “There’s something out there I can’t resist / I need to hide away from the pain / There’s something out there I can’t resist.”
If we continue to compare the pair of sisters’ favourite albums, we would struggle to find any more similarities, because Nancy favoured the “mind-altering” sounds of The Beatles and Steely Dan, loud, inventive sonic landscapes that throttle and thrash your head in while also seeming to tuck you into a bed made of feathers.
On the other hand, Ann favoured the glam-rock of Bowie, specifically on Blackstar, as well as Lucinda Williams’ Essence and Chris Whitley’s Perfect Day. Their lists might overlap in general vibes when we note Ann’s pick of Quadrophenia by The Who, which she deemed “timeless and ageless”. Hey, variety is the spice of life, right? It’s certainly worked for Heart.
