The “problematic” Heart song Ann Wilson hated singing
Sometimes you get so tired of performing your own songs that they become something of a burden to you, but in the case of Heart and Ann Wilson, the song she has the most objection to isn’t even one of her creations.
It might seem like a strange idea to cover a song that you’re not infatuated with in the first place, but by the 1990s, Heart had reached a point in their career where their popularity was beginning to wane for a second time, and in order to reclaim some of their former glories, they had to make a number of artistic compromises in order to maintain any relevance.
When they began to lose their place in the rock world in the early ‘80s, they chose to hire external songwriters to assist them for the first time in their career, having written all of their previous hits in the 1970s. When songs like ‘These Dreams’ and ‘Alone’ started reaching the top of the charts, they realised that this tough decision to relinquish some of their creative control was going to help them in the long run, but this would soon result in them performing songs they didn’t want to be associated with.
Their tenth album, Brigade, featured hardly any songs that the band had written themselves, and even the ones they had had a part in were only partial contributions. This began to have a dramatic effect on the standard of their music, but they were still able to gain chart success as a result of this sacrificial decision.
One of the songs that they ended up including on the record was ‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You’, a song that had been written by former AC/DC and Foreigner producer Mutt Lange, and that was originally performed by Dobie Gray as an album track on his unsuccessful self-titled 1979 album. While it hadn’t been a hit for Gray, getting an act with the appeal of Heart to perform it was sure to generate a hit.
Given that the song tells the story of a woman who picks up a hitchhiker, takes him to the nearest motel and demands that he have sex with her and get her pregnant, you can understand why it was considered to be problematic in the first place.
Even with Wilson and Lange choosing to switch the gender roles from the original song, where it was the man who picked up a female hitchhiker, it ended up causing even more controversy due to its blurry perception of sex and consent. Wilson would later comment on it when she and her sister, Nancy, were interviewed for AXS TV several years after the song’s release.
“It has a great hook, it has a great sound, but for Ann, not her favourite song to sing,” Nancy proclaimed. Ann would follow up with an even more damning opinion of the song: “Once again, it’s about the problematic lead singer,” she added. “Has to be authentic, has to believe in the words she’s singing.
Like, ‘You’re a hitchhiker, I don’t know you, so let’s get in the car and exchange fluids and now, get out.’ I mean, that’s hideous.”
As gross as the implications of the song are, it still proved to be a massive hit for the band, going all the way to number two on the US charts, but despite its popularity, you feel as though a song as repulsive as this wouldn’t even be considered to be included on an album in modern times.
