(Especially Right Now)You Need to Hear this Song #21
Heavy Rotation — Kick it Out, Heart (Little Queen, 1977)
Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that one way or another got a lot of airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotation that a particular record got on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.
Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, though in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.
For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that you come back to from time to time and still feels just as good.
This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.
Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?
I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.
What song is in your head right now? Here’s one that won’t leave mine today:
#21 — Kick it Out, Heart (Little Queen, 1977)
This little series of mine needs to hear from some women, especially right now. Who better than sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson who have been making rock and roll and kicking ass since the mid 1970s, when it was largely a man’s game.
I have been wanting to write about Heart for some time, but this particular song says it all.
For a kid of the 1980s, Heart was a radio staple with “All I Wanna Do”, “Alone”, “What About Love”, “These Dreams”, “Nothing At All” and “Who Will You Run Two” (the last two, personal favourites). The airwave jungle was a crowded place at that point with bands that tried to sound similar, but Heart’s songwriting, production values, Nancy’s guitar playing and Ann’s incomparable power on vocals made them stand out.
The Wilsons have been making music since the mid 1970s out of Seattle, Washington. Success came relatively quickly as their first album, “Dreamboat Annie” in 1975, featured such songs as “Crazy on You” and “Magic Man”. However, despite an endless string of hits it wasn’t until their eighth album, “Heart” in 1985 that they had their first number one. Even though the opening riff of “Barracuda” had been instantly recognizable as bad ass rock and roll for a decade, it wasn’t until the mid 1980s that Heart hit the big time.
But for the particular song in question here, we need to go back to their third album, “Little Queen” in 1977, on which that same “Barracuda” is the opening track. Imagine starting an album with that riff. Imagine being able to say fuck it and getting right in everyone’s face from the word go. Even if, or especially when, they told you not to.
By the time the album hits the third track, Kick it Out sounds like two women for whom there is no going back.
Ordinarily, I include a live performance video at the end of these articles, but I think right here is a good place for this. It’s a live performance that they did on Letterman with Foo Fighters in 2014.
It kicks right off at :20 and the energy is through the roof immediately. The dearly departed Taylor Hawkins is beating the hell out of his drums, Dave Grohl has the good sense to stand back and Nancy Wilson is cool as fuck on her Flying V Guitar. But hey…at :36, in comes Ann and blows the doors off the whole thing.
“Out of the street, get on home
Tail shaking filly running on her own
They say she got loose on the night
She was born”
She asks no permission and takes no prisoners. There is an epic band behind them, but it’s clear where our focus should be here — the cosmic energy between the two sisters comes through the screen and wraps its hand around your neck. At 1:49 they sing into the same mic, as though they’ve done it a thousand times. A million times.
Ooooooooh at 2:26 and it is pure rock and roll power coming out of that voice until it all wraps up at 2:59 and David Letterman can’t believe his ears, while the other Dave on stage is grinning in the back like the cat that got the cream.
I don’t know if this song has anything to do with Roe v. Wade or not, it’s from the same era. But from the lyrics, it is about a young woman making her way in the world and doing whatever she wants, being whoever she wants, wild and free. Free of anyone’s control of her or determination of what she should do or who she should be.
For that reason, I have this song cranked right up to 11 today. Fuck these Supreme Court justices and politicians who are in the back pockets of Christian Fundamentalists. Fuck anyone who doesn’t believe in equality for all and a person’s inalienable right to decide for themselves what to do with their own body.
“Kick out your motor and drive
While you’re still alive,
KICK IT OUT”
If you have made it this far, it will occur to you if this is #21 in this series, then there must be 20 previous ones. This is a correct assumption and here I will link #20. At the bottom of it, you find a link to #19 and the bottom of it, you can — if you so choose — be taken to #18. This ingenious system that I thought up all by myself continues all the way to #1
I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use this link, then I get a slice of that. I continue to support a woman’s right to choose.