The song Heart were surprised was a hit: “Lost in translation”
Heart seemed a duo more destined to unite in their shared love for music than any other. Even Ann Wilson’s first memory of loving music involves Nancy. Riding passenger in the car with her dad, on the way to pick up her newborn sister from the hospital, when Jimmy Dean’s ‘Sixteen Tons’ started playing on the radio.
For Nancy, the experience was no less familial. “I can remember looking through the bars of my crib and my mum singing a lullaby to me, ‘My Curly Headed Baby’. Her voice had a round, smoky quality, kind of like Patti Page,” she recalled, before she grew up to the sounds of James Brown and Aretha Franklin spinning on the record player, a worthy set-up for two sisters who would take on the rock scene like firecrackers.
This kind of all-consuming musical upbringing served as the ultimate primer for such musical destiny, with Ann and Nancy initially discovering it was more than a hobby when they started going to school, realising that their love ventured deeper than mere appreciation. While many of these sounds ran deep, their need to be in the spotlight grew, but they faced the one thing most aspiring female musicians faced at the same time: a lack of guidance when it came to other female rock stars.
But that didn’t stop them from ploughing on, and in fact, it was their unwavering fervour that established them as game-changers, along with their ability to perform the sorts of songs they actually wanted to, despite not really having a rulebook to play by, which made them stand out. Obviously, there were a lot of things to factor in as women in the spotlight, but the uncertainty unknowingly worked out in their favour, even if it took a good few years for them to join together in a way that made sense for them.
But this also established an atmosphere where anything could happen, and often, because of the way each musician played ideas that felt natural to them, they never really knew if anything was going to land outside of their four walls or not. This is often the case with musicians and innovators, especially, most of them enjoying the kind of doubt or uncertainty with creativity and not knowing how things will be received. But for Heart, it paid off more than they anticipated, a notable example being the song ‘There’s The Girl’.
Co-written by Nancy and Holly Knight, ‘There’s The Girl’ was a surprise hit for Heart, one that also embedded itself deep into their legacy and became a familiar favourite constantly celebrated by fans. Inspired by a very real experience Nancy went through about being caught up in the weeds of a romance between three, the song took on a life of its own, with people coming back to it more than they anticipated in the early stages of writing.
However, most of this surprise came because the song was written over a longer period of time, coming together in bits and pieces and in a way that almost felt entirely separate from the outside world. According to Knight, this sometimes means things “get lost in translation”, a feeling that made it seem like the song wasn’t destined to become as popular as it did.
“I had the melody and the chorus, and it took us a while to write those lyrics because we’d write a little bit and then we’d get distracted and she’d go on the road, so it was written over time,” Knight explained. “Sometimes, something gets lost in translation when it’s written over time, and I’m very surprised and happy to say that the song ended up being really popular. I see some of the comments on YouTube, and people love that song. I get asked about it all the time.”
That said, the song has everything you might expect of a hit: a driving beat, an endearing riff, and a melody that pulls you in straight away. It also maintains the kind of charge Heart became known for, the perfect anthem for anybody who’s ever felt frustrated in their feelings for someone else. It might have felt like something of a sleeper to them, but to everybody else, it always had the recipe for success.
