Heart

Bebe Le Strange

Great albums by Ann and Nancy, le bebes strange

Review Score:

(10/10)
Until they emerged with the Heart album and the lineup that took them to new heights, Bebe Le Strange was the hardest album the Wilson Sisters and company came up with, and it proved that they were some really strange bebes.

The title track, a fan's tribute to a rocker, is a down and dirty rocker with a fiery and quick punky riff inbetween the chorus and the verse and is not only the best song on the album, but one of four (count'em, FOUR!, rockers.)

The slow "Down On Me" is pure fiery blues, and the guitars that accompany "You get so down/down on me" resemble the guitars on The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Ann's vocals are really powerful throughout the number.

The brief instrumental "Silver Wheels" is played by Nancy Wilson before erupting into the second great rocker, the breakneck "Break", which has a riff like Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." It seems to be against the rigid strictures of the corporate mindset: "I got no more respect for the big man/Pulling me down to what he understands/... No one is going to tie me to this machine/Giving me formula force fed dreams." There's an interesting reference to one of their earlier singles: "After a while, there just ain't no more magic, man." A little injoke there.

After starting with a slow guitar, "Rockin Heaven Down" goes into power rocker mode after the title words are sung.

I don't know why they chose "Even It Up" as the single. It's good enough, with a catchy enough riff, but I can think of three or four other songs that could've done better. The song has Ann demanding her man, who has clearly been using her, to pay her back for what she did for him. The horn section in this song is courtesy of the Tower of Power group.

"Strange Night" shares contention with "Rockin Heaven Down" for hardest song, as Howard Leese's really snarling guitar attests to. Wild night too, if the guitar's evidence

With the exception of Michael Derosier on drums, "Raised On You" is Nancy Wilson's show all the way, vocals included, in this splendid little piano rocker which is their version of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me." The message behind this song can be summed up in these lines: "Let's go tell the world/to quit turning cold/Just let me be raised on you."

That is followed by the light acoustic "Pilot", a theme about finding love analogous to a pilot finding a place to land: "Pilot I fell through/From the blue/I just flew into you."

"Sweet Darlin" is one of Heart's best ballads, and a piano one. This one is Ann's baby, as she Ann played bass, drums, alto flute, tambourine, as well as piano and acoustic guitar. Oh yes, she wrote the song as well. It bursts into power ballad mode at the bridge. "Engines were screaming..." in reference to a flight she has to take, but I wonder if that mirrors her own heart at the love she has found.

Songwriter Sue Ennis co-writes seven of the ten tracks here--the three exceptions being "Silver Wheels," "Raised On You," and "Sweet Darlin." Probably their second best pre-Capitol album after Dreamboat Annie.

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