The rock band Heart has hit the charts with so many memorable songs. One such song is “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You”, a later-career hit for the group from the 10th album, Brigade. Upon its release in 1990, this track was a hefty hit and spent two weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was so well received that it even earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. To this day, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” remains the only single by Heart to be Certified Gold by the RIAA.
And yet, Heart hasn’t played this song in nearly two decades. If you haven’t heard the song before, or haven’t listened closely, you might have no clue one. Listening closely to the lyrics will tell you everything you need to know about why Heart won’t play this song ever again.
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You Probably Won’t Hear Heart Perform “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” Ever Again, and for Good Reason
Heart hasn’t performed this 1990 rock song in about 17 years, per setlist.fm. Their last performance of the song took place on September 12, 2009, at Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. And ahead of 2009, the band hadn’t performed it since 1998. In total, Heart has only performed “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” a total of 59 times, despite the song being quite a hit back in the day. And if you want to understand why, all you have to do is listen to the song. It’s… something. “Poorly aged” might be the best way to put it.
Let’s consider a few lyrics, shall we?
So we found this hotel
It was a place I knew well
We made magic that night
Oh, he did everything right.
I told him I am the flower
You are the seed
We walked in the garden
We planted a tree
Don’t try to find me.
I said, “Please, please understand
I’m in love with another man
And what he couldn’t give me, oh, whoa
Was the one little thing that you can.”
You read that correctly. “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” is about a woman who hooks up with a hitchhiker so she can get pregnant.
“Like, you’re a hitchhiker, I don’t know you, so let’s get in the car and exchange fluids, and now, get out,” said Ann Wilson of the song in 2015. “I mean, that’s hideous.”
Ann Wilson would later perform the song on her solo tour in 2017 with significantly altered lyrics, but Heart hasn’t played it in about 17 years.
Photo by Steve Rapport/Getty Images
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