Why Heart regretted their biggest hit: “The shoe fit, but not comfortably”
Despite having the largest amount of their success during a period when classic rock was in decline and had less of a stranglehold on the rest of the music industry, American outfit Heart are still regarded as an important group for how they played a part in influencing the next generation of rock stars in the decades after their peak. Hailing from the Northwestern city of Seattle, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell has been on record in the past to sing the praises of the group, calling them the “American Led Zeppelin” and commenting on how influential they were to his own musical output in the late 1980s and ‘90s, as well as the city’s grunge scene.
Arguably, the largest attraction to the band was the sheer power behind the dual vocals of the Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy. The sibling duo still remain at the helm of the band to this day, and their presence on hits such as ‘Alone’ and ‘These Dreams’ are ultimately what gave them staying power as a driving force in rock music from the 1970s in the early ‘90s
While the two aforementioned tracks were arguably their biggest hits in the US, both reaching number one in the charts, there are plenty of other songs that ought to be celebrated to the same degree. The Wilson sisters recognise this and have reflected on their own past output with the utmost reverence. When asked about their finest work, they’re often inclined to celebrate the lesser-known songs from their back catalogue rather than the ones that saw them achieve the most chart success.
Even though it only peaked at number two in the US charts, one of the band’s biggest hits was ‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You’, but there are plenty of reasons as to why they’re a lot more dismissive of this song in particular, going as far as to label it the song that “carries the worst memories” for them in a 2021 interview with Vulture. The track, which was originally written by Mutt Lange and recorded in 1979 by Dobie Gray, inexplicably became a hit for Heart in 1990, but they weren’t necessarily keen on the idea of recording it in the first place.
The Wilson sisters realised that Lange was an exceptional talent when it came to songwriting, but they resented the fact that they had been placed in a position where they were having to work with someone else when they’d already demonstrated their own ability to have a hit with songs that the band had penned themselves. “We were in the position in that part of the ’80s where all of the wrong bands were almost being forced to hire outsider songwriters from the Los Angeles songwriting stable,” Nancy explained, “So they could have bigger hits and make more corporate money. It was a clumsy time for us as artists and creatives.”
In order to feel more comfortable with the song, they proposed a number of changes from what had initially been a hit as a country-style track with storytelling elements and decided to change the genders in the story to make it feel more reflective of what they’d have written themselves. “It definitely had a catchy chorus, and it takes the listeners on a journey, but it wasn’t stuff that we would want to write ourselves,” Nancy confessed. However, the biggest shock for her was what came next.
“It became our biggest worldwide hit,” she recalled. “It was banned in Ireland. We were like, hey, that’s pretty cool. It almost makes it more of a rock song when that happens.” The song’s controversial subject matter of a woman attempting to seduce a hitchhiker in order to get pregnant was what offended Irish audiences, but Heart were much happier singing these altered lyrics compared to how Lange had originally written it. Their opinions of the song still remain mixed to this day: “Let’s just say the shoe fit, but not comfortably.”
