The Heart Classic That Nancy Wilson Had To Convince Ann Wilson To Sing Again

Just because a song is a hit with the crowd doesn’t mean it’s a hit with the band, and such was the case for a Heart classic that Nancy Wilson had to convince her sister and bandmate, Ann Wilson, to sing again. Despite being one of the rock band’s most beloved tracks, the band rarely performed it live after the 1980s.

Thankfully for all of us who adore the classic rock tune, guitarist Nancy Wilson was able to package the song in a way that was more palatable to Ann, and the song has returned to their set.

The Heart Track Nancy Wilson Convinced Ann Wilson to Sing

Picture it: it’s the mid-1970s. You’ve just put Heart’s debut album, Dreamboat Annie, on your turntable. After a few seconds of dusty crackle, the first song opens the record with a wailing guitar bend and pulsing drumbeat that would set the mood for the entire LP. That track was “Magic Man,” and the hauntingly seductive rocker became one of Heart’s most popular songs of their career.

Nevertheless, it took just over a decade for vocalist Ann Wilson’s opinion of the song to sour. Seemingly overnight, the band cut “Magic Man” from their live set. “We used to kind of dread “Magic Man” because it just seemed dated for a few years there,” guitarist Nancy Wilson admitted to Ultimate Classic Rock. Nancy said her sister and bandmate, Ann, struggled to relate to the song as she grew older because it seemed like a “teenage girl story.”

“She’s such a cool, authentic singer that she has an issue with lyrics. She has to believe what she’s talking about when she’s singing these songs,” Nancy continued. “I had to talk her into [“Magic Man”] again. I said, ‘Look, this is every young girl’s experience. You don’t have to pretend you’re a teenage girl. You just have to sing it to every girl.’ So, we brought “Magic Man” back into the set. Now we do the entire long version with all the sections, all the diverse sections that go by.”

The Lead Singer’s Personal Connection To The Track

Ann Wilson’s hesitancy to perform “Magic Man” because it sounded like a “teenage girl love story” becomes all the more understandable when one considers that she was the young girl behind the song in the first place. The opening track to Dreamboat Annie describes a girl who runs away with a seductive “magic man” as her mom begs her to return home.

According to Wilson, that wasn’t just descriptive poetry. “I was living at home, going to art college, and existing in this very staid, suburban state of being,” she explained to Rolling Stone. “Then I met a guy, and love just took over. He was the ‘magic man.’ I walked out of my parents’ house and away from all the safety and all the assurance and went to Canada to follow him. My mom was not so sure it was a real good idea. She was like, “You are so young and immature! Do you even use birth control?” Back then, you didn’t talk to your mother about that. I think I was 21, but I was young for my age.”

“The song is a story about leaving home,” Wilson continued. “Lines like Come on home, girl, Mama cried on the phone, that was real. We used to have these long conversations where she would go, “You get back here! You don’t know what you’re doing.” I can remember how upset she was. She was dead set against it. She was formidable. But I won in this case.”

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