Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson Never Liked Their 1985 Hit “What About Love,” at First

In 1982, songwriter Jim Vallance, a longtime collaborator of Bryan Adams (“Summer of ’69,” “Heaven”), spent a week writing with the Canadian band Toronto. Within the batch of songs written, nearly a dozen made the cut on the band’ s1982 album Get It on Credit, except for one, co-written with Toronto’s Brian Allen and Sheron Alton, “What About Love.”

“I don’t want to say it was easy, because writing songs is never easy, but ‘What About Love’ came together very quickly,” said Vallance. “The song only took two or three hours to complete, with each of us contributing equal portions of music and lyrics. I came away thinking we’d really “clicked” as a songwriting team, and I thought the song was more than good.”

Though Vallance thought the song was a possible hit, it didn’t make it onto the Toronto charts and never crossed Vallance’s mind again, until Heart recorded the power ballad three years later.

“My phone rings, and it’s Don Grierson with Capitol Records, and he says, ‘Congratulations, you’ve got the first single on the new Heart album,’” Vallance tells American Songwriter. “And I said, ‘What song would that be?’ And he said, ‘What About Love?’”

At first, Vallance was blindsided and wondered how “What About Love” made its way to Heart. Following Toronto’s 1984 album Assault & Flattery, the band’s label Solid Gold, went bankrupt and was purchased by ATV Music, and Michael McCarty at their Canadian publisher, went through all the songs in the catalog, then sent a copy of “What About Love” to Grierson, who shared it with Heart’s then-producer, Ron Nevison, who flew up to Seattle and played it for Ann and Nancy Wilson.

I’ve been lonely, I’ve been waitin’ for you
I’m pretending, and that’s all I can do
The love I’m sendin’
Ain’t makin’ it through to your heart

You’ve been hidin’, never lettin’ it show
Always tryin’ to keep it under control
You got it dow,n and you’re well on your way to the top
But there’s somethin’ that you forgot

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[RELATED: The Writer’s Block: Ann Wilson on Writing for Heart and Women in Music Today]

What about love?
Don’t you want someone to care about you?
And what about love?
Don’t let it slip away

What about love?
I only want to share it with you
You might need it someday

After hearing the song, neither of the Wilson sisters was a fan of the demo. It even made Nancy get up and walk out of the room, an episode Vallance only learned decades later after reading the band’s 2012 biography Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll. A “So Ron said to them, ‘Look, I think it’s a hit. Let’s record it. If you still hate it, I promise I won’t put it on the record,’” says Vallance.

“They must have liked it since they recorded it,” adds Vallance. “And it ended up being their comeback hit since their label was going to drop them [following the underperformance of their 1983 album, Passionworks] if they didn’t have a hit single.” 

“What About Love” was one of the first tracks Heart cut in the studio and one of the first the brass at Capitol heard. “Don Grierson said that as he played it to a conference room full of suits, many of whom had been reluctant to sign us in the first place, it won them over,” recalled Ann Wilson. “We trusted Don, and when we finally played the song in concert, he was right. ‘What About Love’ became, and remained, the showstopper of our live set.”

Once released on Heart’s 1985 self-titled album, “What About Love” was the comeback they needed, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“I like to say every song has a story,” says Vallance. “This one went from somewhere on a shelf in Toronto to the top of the charts.”

Photo: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images