11 Best Heart Songs Sung By Nancy Wilson

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Our 11 Best Heart Songs Sung By Nancy Wilson article presents a wonderful showcase of songs in which Nancy Wilson sings lead vocals. It must not be easy standing right next to one of the greatest rock and roll singers of all time in her sister Ann. Still, Nancy has held her own quite wonderfully over the years whenever she has taken the lead on a tune. We wonder how many people even recognize, just from hearing the songs on the radio or CD, that at times it is Nancy singing lead vocals. Of course, I think most Heart fans can hear the difference in tone and style, but the timbres of both sisters are so similar that it can sometimes be hard to distinguish. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve put this list together. We wanted to enlighten those who aren’t aware that Nancy actually sings lead on some songs, and maybe even on some of their favorites.

# 11 – Treat Me Well – Little Queen

We open up our 10 Best Heart Songs Sung By Nancy Wilson list with the first Heart song that Nancy Wilson ever sang lead vocals on. Her solo lead vocal debut took place on the band’s sophomore album, Little Queen. The song, also written by Nancy Wilson, features her as the sole songwriter, marking a significant moment in her musical career. She is pretty much on her own throughout the entire track vocally, as it doesn’t just appear that Ann Wilson sings any sort of harmonies on the song.

# 10 – I Need The Rain – Jupiters Darling

Nancy Wilson sang only one lead vocal on Heart’s first three albums: Dreamboat Annie, Magazine, and Little Queen. Things changed dramatically over the years. Jumping almost forty years ahead to 2004, Heart released the fabulous, underrated album Jupiter’s Darling. On this album, Nancy Wilson actually sang five lead vocals.

Jupiter’s Darling is a very long album, running almost seventy minutes with eighteen tracks if you include the bonus UK edition tracks. The standard edition has sixteen tracks. Nonetheless, I’m sure Ann Wilson was happy that Nancy gave her a bit of a break on this lengthy record. While we would have loved to include all five of Nancy Wilson’s lead vocals, we wanted to save room on this list for some others. Here is the first of the three, called “I Need the Rain.” The song was written by Nancy Wilson and Craig Bartok.

# 9 – Nada One – Dog And Butterfly

Continuing with our 11 Best Heart Songs Sung By Nancy Wilson list, we take a listen to the mellow, Zeppelin-like song “Nada One.” This was the second lead vocal performed by Nancy Wilson across the band’s first four albums. It showcases a definite maturation in her vocal abilities, which can be easily heard on this track.

This song is quite stunning, with moments when you can sense Nancy’s powerful and impressive vocal performance echoing her sister Ann. “Nada One” was written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, and Sue Ennis and released on the Dog and Butterfly album in 1978.

# 8 – Love Mistake – Passionworks

When I first purchased Passionworks on cassette, there were absolutely no credits inside the tape. Later on, I eventually bought it on CD, and the credits were still very limited. I’m not sure why Heart provided so little detailed information on their albums.

The first time I heard the song “Love Mistake,” I knew it was sung by Nancy Wilson, even though there was no confirmation of it. There was never a music video for the song. It wasn’t until Nancy released her first live album, Live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, where she sang this song, that I realized it was indeed her. It was the same exact voice from Passionworks. From that point on, I really got to know Nancy Wilson’s voice even better.

# 7 – I Want Your World To Turn – Brigade

After the success of “Never” from the 1985 Heart album, I was very surprised that Nancy did not sing lead vocals on more songs over the next two albums. In fact, on Brigade, she only sang one lead vocal. That song, entitled “I Want Your World to Turn,” was written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. Sadly, it was somewhat buried on the album, placed as the twelfth out of thirteen tracks. It’s a good one, although it’s nothing like the songs that Nancy Wilson self-penned. This is definitely hit-driven music. But that’s okay, as I like well-written pop-rock songs. There is an art form to that.

# 6 – Led To One – Jupiters Darling

Landing in the number six spot on our 11 Best Heart Songs Sung By Nancy Wilson list is another track from the album Jupiter’s Darling. This song was also written by Nancy Wilson and Craig Bartok. It has a bit of a heavy flange on the guitar, giving it a unique sound. Like many of the songs on this album, it has an old-school Heart vibe reminiscent of their first four or five albums, especially the first three.

# 5 – Walkin’ Good – Fanatic

At the halfway point on this list is a song many fans thought was sung by Ann. This is a really special one. The lead vocal was performed by Nancy Wilson, with Sarah McLachlan dueting on the track. The song was released on the Fanatic album in 2012. This was the last Heart studio album filled with brand-new material. It’s hard to believe that was twelve years ago. The band’s most recent album, Beautiful Broken, which came out in 2016, was essentially an album filled with reinterpretations of classic Heart songs, with only two new tracks on the record.

# 4 – Things – Jupiters Darling

“Things” is one of the strongest songs on Heart’s Jupiter’s Darling album. It is the third song from the album to be placed on this list. It’s a sparse arrangement fueled by great acoustic guitar licks and a John Bonham-style bass drum groove. The Led Zeppelin influence never left the Wilson sisters. The band knew they had a great song with this one. “Things” is the third song on the album. Once again, the song was written by Nancy Wilson and Craig Bartok, the band’s lead guitar player and chief songwriter on the album, who co-composed more than half the songs on the record.

# 3 – There’s The Girl – Bad Animals

With the success of the song “These Dreams” from the band’s massively successful Heart album released in 1985, the group made sure to showcase Nancy’s breathtaking vocals on another hit song. “There’s the Girl” is a great one. Featuring Nancy Wilson on lead vocals, “There’s the Girl” was the third single released from the album. It became a top twenty hit, peaking at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the third top twenty hit in a row released from the album, following the debut single “What About Love,” which reached number ten, and the follow-up “Never,” which reached number four.

Nancy Wilson and Holly Knight composed “There’s the Girl.” When I first bought this album the day it was released, I knew right away that it was Nancy singing lead vocals on this track. And then, of course, the video was released, confirming it 100%.

# 2 – These Dreams – Heart

Heart’s greatest commercial period occurred in the mid-1980s when they signed with Capitol Records and completely revamped their image for the MTV generation. There was a lot of controversy over their adaptation to a new look and sound that capitalized on the popularity of glam rock. If you look at the videos released from these Heart albums in the mid-1980s, you can see all the hair, makeup, and huge stages—it was all very ’80s. Nonetheless, this proved to be widely successful for the band, helping them reach a mainstream audience they had not connected with before. Of course, their old fans weren’t happy about it, but I guess there are trade-offs.

The success of the album was originally fueled by the hit single “What About Love.” It was a massive hit; however, what was most interesting about this album was the release of the second single, “These Dreams,” which featured a stunning Nancy Wilson in the video singing lead vocals. Whether or not you liked the band’s new style, it would be hard not to enjoy this song. Nancy Wilson’s performance is just stunning, both from an audio and video perspective. The song became a top ten hit for the band. It was written by Martin Page and Bernie Taupin.

# 1 – Raised On You – Bébé le Strange

We close out our “Our Favorite Heart Songs with Lead Vocals by Nancy Wilson” list with one of our favorite Heart songs of all time. This one always makes appearances on our other Heart songs lists, so it doesn’t have to be a huge hit to be one of our favorites. We’ve loved this one since the first time we heard it on the Bebe le Strange album. It was pretty obvious that this was Nancy Wilson singing, as her phrasing is very distinct. She’s got so much soul in her voice, and the piano intro is just a whole lot of fun.

Bebe le Strange is a great Heart album. It’s probably the album that best mixes their original sound with a somewhat commercial appeal, which yielded significant success for the band. This is a perfect album. The two follow-up albums after this record, Private Audition and Passionworks, didn’t do well, which led them to change and revamp the whole band and sound. But in 1980, Bebe le Strange just hit the mark perfectly.