Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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Teachers, mothers, nurses, or waitresses.
(With other hits,of course, celebrating the complex art of female desire.)
Best Heart song
Thats a tough question.
Theres a sweeping philosophical symbolism to it.
I realize thats a lot of highfalutin imagery, but I do think thats what the song achieves.
Its aUlysses-throw in song.
And youre a changed person forever.
Youll never look at life the same way again.
Mistral Wind represents all cylinders of Heart.
Weve always tried to be heavier and more poetic and life-affirming.
Maybe even birds-eye-view in certain ways, not just on the ground singing about boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.
Thats never been our forte.
A humanitarian spiritual guide in your life.
I think thats exactly who Ann was and still is.
Its got a beautiful, romantic, spiritual statement to it.
It narrows it down into an understandable context.
But I love that people like to say, I love that song even if I dont know why!
Hes a huge hitmaker.
It was a clumsy time for us as artists and creatives.
And what do you know?
It became our biggest worldwide hit.
It was banned in Ireland.
We were like, hey, thats pretty cool.
It almost makes it more of a rock song when that happens.
Lets just say the shoe fit, but not comfortably.
Wed give a shot to add new parts or update things inside the song through the years.
Magic Man represents part of her own life that she wrote about when she was closer to a teenager.
She feels different now about that guy it was written about.
She has to deliver the song in an honest voice and not be phoning it in.
Thats her quandary and thats a really admirable thing about her.
But that song had a wonderful, poetic structure to it.
It was put on the B-list of Heart songs in the end.
Funny enough, I ended up putting a better version of Language of Love on ourBeautiful Brokenalbum.
Most Zeppelin-inspired guitar work
The first one that comes to mind is Mistral Wind again.
Thats something Jimmy would do, and that was out of the box.
Its a fast and finger-style song; theres a lot of sliding around to do.
I dont play acoustic guitar lightly I play it like a percussion instrument.
All those things combined make that one a real tough one for me.
I have to warm up a lot before I tackle it.
The big riff that comes in and the kick combined its hard to beat that moment.
Its such an intricate intro followed by the release of the beginning of the song.
It sets you off on a charging stead and its always a big moment.
I mean, hes the guitar player for Yes, so hes no slouch.
We had lofty ideas of what we wanted to do.
So in Steves fashion, I tried to invent a perfect instrument introduction for Crazy on You.
I modeled it after the song Angie, by Simon & Garfunkel, which is an incredible instrumental work.
So I sat down for a couple days and came up with Silver Wheels.
We werent going into that box.
Somebody within the industry said to Ann, Oh, you and your lover Nancy, right?
Ann was so indignant.
Hell, her boyfriend was right over there in the same room.
It was such an insult because we were there for the art.
We werent there for the salacious slimeball mentality of the industry.
The song represents the power of a couple marine-corps brats.
You dont want to see that war face.
It was a loud, uppity woman on a big stage with a loud voice.
Its like,what?Theres no room for a woman to have power?
That was, I think, the most insulting and laughably so review ever.
Id put it in a frame now if I could find it.
Most meaningful compliment youve received from another guitarist
There are two important ones.
The first occurred afterwe performed Stairway to Heaven at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012.
Led Zeppelin was there as honorees, of course, in the balcony.
We were invited to the dinner, and Jimmy Page himself said how great I could play.
They all walked up to our table to personally thank us.
But Jimmy said, You played that great.
You really nailed it.
Coming from him I thought,Oh my God, I could die now.Im a Zeppelin superfan!
It was a surprise for them; they had no idea.
The other one wasEddie Van Halen.
We were on a festival tour with them in the late 70s and we hung out a bit.
So I said, Well, heres one right now, take mine as a gift.
I loved it so much.
On my new album, I dedicated a song called 4 Edward to him because of that experience.
Favorite sister album cover
I like theBebe le Strangecoverthe best.
I loved that it was a close-up of both of us in black-and-white.
The looks on our faces are self-satisfied in a cool way.
We look like cool rockers.
They didnt like that part at all.
