It was Saturday, July 6th, 1985 when the eighth studio album for the band named Heart was released to the world. The self-titled album Heart came on the heels of when many had thought the band washed-up. I was ten-years old when the album was released, thus granting me what felt like a fresh new band to hear. It was only later that I came to appreciate the band’s fuller catalogue more completely. Join me with this look back at the Heart self-titled album.
If Looks Could Kill opens the Heart self-titled album as the fifth song released from the album. The album rock, arena rock band flexed more of their hard rock muscle with this song about the importance of personality rather than looks in a relationship.
What About Love charted tenth in the United States and fourteenth in the United Kingdom. The song “marked a turnaround for the band, which after a triumphant run of hits in the ’70s got off to a rough start in the ’80s with a decline in sales and little airplay for their new material on radio or MTV,” as noted here by Songfacts. Music Television (MTV) was still playing music videos in the mid-1980s.
Never topped the music charts at #4 in the United States and #8 in the United Kingdom. Never “is an empowerment song with a very vague storyline but a seriously catchy chorus,” as indicated here. The theme of the chorus is to experience the love that has developed while never running away from the risk of a heartbreak.
These Dreams charts at #1 in the United States and #8 in the United Kingdom. Bernie Taupin of Lincolnshire, England wrote the lyrics to this song as Martin Page of Southampton, Hampshire, England wrote the music. Nancy Wilson sang the vocals for the song, rather than her sister, Ann Wilson. As for Heart, the song “became their first #1 hit,” as confirmed here.
The Wolf aspires for a rock & roll sound with a message to a male counterpart singer that is into a fast and loose lifestyle that doesn’t work for the perspective of the song’s singer, Ann Wilson.
All Eyes addresses the notion of intimate physical attraction based strictly on looks. The song is aspirational in feeling and expectation. The perspective takes the rejected male perspective of The Wolf and affirms it from a feminine, even hopeful perspective here.
The song Nobody Home plays as a ballad of warning and disappointment. The song’s perspective is of the jilted lover singing to the dreamer in a relationship that is looking for more outside the relationship, thus leaving the romantic relation behind.
Nothin’ at All is the last hit on the self-titled album, Heart. The song peaked at #10 in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #38 in the United Kingdom as late as 1988. As the lyrics go, the song describes new love that came about with little in terms of effort or conflict.
What He Don’t Know returns to more of the melodic contemporary pop/rock sound about what gets communicated in romantic relationships. The song specifically gets into the intimacy that singer Ann Wilson is seeking with another man outside of her main romantic relationship.
Shell Shock offers guitar driven riffs with a parting mixture of stunned hope for the audience listening to the album. That the song raises the notion of physical intimacy and the immediacy of unexpected success in such matters. The experience is a wink of an eye of sorts, inviting a shell shocked feeling to the adolescent male listening to this album while the singer herself professes the self-same feeling.
Matt – Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Matt Lynn Digital 