The Heart song Ann Wilson hates with a passion: “It was shocking”
There are plenty of unfortunate lyrics in musical history. As time moves on, what is and isn’t acceptable rightfully changes. Music no longer tolerates hateful language or slurs, instead viewing songs featuring problematic language as reminders of past injustices. But today, we’re more conscious not only of a song’s exact words but also of its meaning, depiction, and implications. Through that lens, Ann Wilson came to feel uncomfortable about one of Heart’s songs.
Largely, Heart have been an inspiring force. Formed in the early 1970s, when the rock world was—and realistically still is—overwhelmingly male-dominated, the emergence of Ann and Nancy Wilson as two formidable leaders was significant. They weren’t just singers placed at the front of the stage, nor were they backing vocalists hidden in the shadows. Instead, they were the driving force of the band—leaders and, crucially, musicians.
No one could ever deny their talent and so no one could ever try to claim that they were only there to be a pretty face. Between Nancy’s influential guitar skills and Ann’s multi-instrumental abilities, they rose to the top not just as a great band, but as two new leading lights that would inspire generations to come.
Their music feels like that. With an all-out rock energy, Heart made high-octane songs built to thrill. It’s impossible to heart ‘Barracuda’ or ‘Crazy On You’ and not feel powerful like you could take over the world. But when it comes to one of their biggest songs, the empowerment the songwriter thought the band would find it in fell flat and continues to sour in Ann Wilson’s mind.
“I’m no prude,” Wilson said as a disclaimer, “I’m not a Victorian woman or a prudish woman about where sexuality is concerned”. But when it comes to ‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You’, the song makes her feel uncomfortable now.
“When you took those words, that were written to be sung by a man, about casual sex with a hitchhiker and you flip the gender, it was shocking to be sure,” she explained. Written by songwriter Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, the song was initially supposed to go to Don Henley. No doubt if it had, it would now live in history as an even more uncomfortable listen. Seeing a hitchhiker vulnerable by the side of the road with “no umbrella, no coat”, the song’s narrator picks them up, hooks up with them and then leaves them, singing, “Don’t try to find me, please don’t you dare / Just live in my memory, you’ll always be there.”
Sung by a man, it would be queasy. It would feel like another song about a man exploiting a woman, capturing her in a weak state and using her. But when it was offered to Heart, the songwriter clearly thought the mere act of switching the gender negated that.
“For me, it took on a grossness,” Wilson said, “A creepiness”. Even when sung by a woman, she still saw the discomfort in the song’s story, stating, “I think a lot of people like the idea of like ‘hell yeah, the woman in the driver’s seat for a change’ and yeah okay, but that only goes so far.”
But this isn’t even a case of the band coming to dislike the song over time with a more modern view on it – they hated the song from the start. Writing in the liner notes for an album five years after the song was released, they were already distancing themselves from the track as they wrote, “Actually we had sworn off it because it kind of stood for everything we wanted to get away from.”
In Wilson’s eyes, the song is “hideous”, but as it performed well in the charts and sold well, clearly, the band’s audience didn’t share the same strong moral compass.
