The Most and Least-Played Song Live Off Every Heart Album

When you think about it, watching a live band perform is a once in a lifetime experience, and not just in the sentimental sense.

Allow Nancy Wilson of Heart to explain.

“Because we play completely live, we don’t have pre-records, so we really have skin in the game when we’re on stage,” she told the Los Angeles Daily News in February of 2025. “It’s only going to happen that one time, live on a stage like that, so the moments are really precious and larger than life.”

Heart has been around a long time, and with over a dozen studio albums to their name, they have a lot of music to pick from when it comes to crafting set lists. Below, with the help of data from setlist.fm, we’ve sorted out The Most and Least-Played Song Live Off Every Heart Album. For our purposes here, we’re not including Heart’s most recent album, 2016’s Beautiful Broken, since its mainly made up of re-recordings of older songs.

And of course, there are some songs Heart has never played live in their entire career — we’ll be focusing on songs that have, at one point or another, seen a set list. We should also note that we’re only considering performances of these songs by Heart, though the individual sisters of the band may have played them at their respective solo shows.

Album: Dreamboat Annie (1975)
Most-played: “Crazy on You”
Least-played: “(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song”

Not only is “Crazy on You” the most-played song from Heart’s debut album, Dreamboat Annie, it’s the most-played song of the band’s entire career with 935 performances. “I wanted to write an acoustic guitar intro before the song started,” Nancy said to Louder in 2021. “So I sat for a few days, just trying to channel that first bar. I wanted it to be really memorable. It was the hardest part, finding a way in. But now, every time I play the introduction, everyone recognizes it right away.” On the least-played end is “(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song,” which only got played three times.

 

Album: Magazine (1977)
Most-played: “Heartless”
Least-played: Tie Between “Mother Earth Blues” and “I’ve Got the Music in Me” by the Kiki Dee Band

Heart’s second album, Magazine, has a slightly complicated history. It was first released — in an unfinished form without the band’s permission — in 1977 by Mushroom Records. Then it came out again in 1978 with a different sequencing. Only one track from this album has never been played live, “Here Song.” The title for next least-played then is a tie between “Mother Earth Blues,” which was included on Magazine in live form, and a cover of the Kiki Dee Band’s “I’ve Got the Music in Me” — each have been played three times. At the No. 1 spot is “Heartless,” which has racked up 355 plays.

 

Album: Little Queen (1977)
Most-played: “Barracuda”
Least-played: “Go on Cry”

It’s one of rock’s instantly recognizable riffs: the one from “Barracuda,” a No. 11 hit for Heart. (Nancy has said that she drew inspiration for it from Nazareth‘s cover of “This Flight Tonight” by Joni Mitchell.) “Barracuda” has been played just a little over 900 times from the year it was released up until the band’s most recent tours. Only one song from this album hasn’t been played live, a track called “Cry to Me.” But another song with a similar name holds the title for least-played with four performances: “Go on Cry.”

 

Album: Dog & Butterfly (1978)
Most-played: “Straight On”
Least-played: “Lighter Touch”

With Dog & Butterfly, the lone never-played song is fittingly titled “Nada One.” In last place then is “Lighter Touch,” which got exactly one play on the Fourth of July in 1981. Fortunately someone thought to record that, which you can hear below. Meanwhile, “Straight On” is the most-played with 655 performances. “When I hear those songs now,” Nancy later said about this album in 2023, “I feel proud.”

 

Album: Bebe le Strange (1980)
Most-played: “Even It Up”
Least-played: “Down on Me”

The ’70s may have ended, but Heart was something of a train that could and would not be stopped. Bebe le Strange, released in May of 1980, went to No. 5 and spent 22 weeks in total on the charts. According to Ann Wilson, “Even It Up,” the most-played song from the album, was meant to be a statement. “[I]t was definitely a response to being obstructed as women in the rock field,” she told Songfacts in 2022. “There are so many systemic things that get thrown up in front of you, different glass walls and stuff. We were speaking out against it then.” There is again one song from this LP that has never seen a set list, “Pilot.” The least-played then is “Down on Me,” a track Ann described in that same Songfacts interview as a “great blues song.”

 

Album: Private Audition (1982)
Most-played: “City’s Burning”
Least-played: “Bright Light Girl”

“The band was in a period of transition…and that was reflected on the record,” Ann once explained of 1982’s Private Audition. “It wasn’t a bad record. It just wasn’t a commercial record.” (Turns out, it was at least a little bit of a commercial record, since it went to No. 25 on the U.S. Billboard 200.) Four of the album’s 11 tracks have never been played: “Private Audition,” “Hey Darlin Darlin,” “One Word” and “America.” On the low end, “Bright Light Girl” has managed to squeeze in two plays, once in 1981 and once in 1982. Even the most-played song, “City’s Burning,” only has 33 performances logged.

 

Album: Passionworks (1983)
Most-played: “How Can I Refuse”
Least-played: Tie Between “Johnny Moon” and “Love Mistake”

With 1983’s Passionworks, two new faces enter the Heart lineup picture: Denny Carmassi and Mark Andes on drums and bass respectively. You’ll notice that this album is a bit different sounding than previous Heart releases, with heavy synthesizer usage. “We changed everything. Nancy and I just instinctively felt that we had come to the end of an era,” Ann explained to Classic Rock in 2023. Four of Passionwork‘s songs have not been played: “Together Now,” “Heavy Heart, ” “Language of Love” and “Ambush.” That creates a tie for least-played between “Johnny Moon” and “Love Mistake,” each of which have 11 performances logged. The album’s leadoff track, “How Can I Refuse,” holds the top spot with 161 plays.

 

Album: Heart (1985)
Most-played: “These Dreams”
Least-played: “What He Don’t Know”

That aforementioned period of transition worked out well for Heart. When they released a self-titled album in 1985 — their first with Columbia Records — it went to the top of the U.S. chart. Again, only one song has been neglected set list-wise, a track called “All Eyes.” But the rest have gotten some great representation. “These Dreams” has accumulated 740 plays, which makes it the fourth most-played song of Heart’s whole catalog. On the low end is “What He Don’t Know” with 13 plays, all of which took place in 1985.

 

Album: Bad Animals (1987)
Most-played: “Alone” by i-Ten
Least-played: “RSVP”

Heart’s next album, 1987’s Bad Animals, did not fare as well as Heart. And by that we mean: instead of landing at No. 1, it landed at No. 2. In this case, it’s actually a cover song that takes the cake — Heart’s version of i-Ten‘s “Alone” has 667 plays to its name. There are multiple tracks from this album that have never been played live, making “RSVP” the next least-performed with eight total plays, all in 1987.

 

Album: Brigade (1990)
Most-played: “Wild Child” by Romeo’s Daughter
Least-played: “I Love You”

If you are a fan of the following three Heart songs, our apologies to you, for they have never been selected for a set list: “Secret,” “Cruel Nights” and “I Want Your World to Turn.” Perhaps you’re into the closing track from Brigade, “I Love You,” and were lucky enough to catch one of only two times it was played in 2003. And then there’s “Wild Child” at the top of the list with 148 performances, a song penned by Robert John “Mutt” Lange, Craig Joiner and Anthony Mitman.

 

Album: Desire Walks On (1993)
Most-played: “Back to Avalon”
Least-played: “My Crazy Head”

The Heart sisters often wrote songs in collaboration with others — “Back to Avalon,” the most-played song from Desire Walks On, is just one example of that. It was co-written with a woman named Kit Hain, who enjoyed both a solo career and was a member of the duo Marshall Hain. Her songs have also been recorded by the likes of Roger Daltrey, Fleetwood Mac and more. Now technically, the Spanish version of “Will You Be There (In the Morning)” — “Te Quedaras (En la Manana)” — is the least-played track with two performances, both unsurprisingly in Spanish-speaking countries. (That version appeared as a bonus track on the European and Japanese editions of Desire Walks On.) But as far as English tracks from the original release, “My Crazy Head” is the least-played with three performances.

 

Album: Jupiters Darling (2004)
Most-played: “Lost Angel”
Least-played: “The Perfect Goodbye”

After Desire Walks On, Heart took an 11-year break from releasing albums, finally returning in 2004 with Jupiters Darling. “We thought: let’s put the Heart car up on blocks in the back yard, let’s just look at it and figure out a new way to present it later,” Ann explained to Classic Rock Radio then. “We started touring and we started writing songs again magically like they were just coming down from somewhere. It took us a while to get the songs for Jupiters Darling, but when we did, then we felt, well, the time is now.” “Lost Angel” is the most-played with 34 performances, while “The Perfect Goodbye” holds last place with just one performance in Nashville — well, unless you also count the time they played it on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, in which case it got two performances.

 

Album: Red Velvet Car (2010)
Most-played: “WTF”
Least-played: “Safronia’s Mark”

Only five of Red Velvet Car‘s 10 tracks have been performed live. Of those, “Safronia’s Mark” is the least-played with a mere three appearances, while “WTF” has earned 86. “[“WTF”] started like a jam, like that song by Cream ‘SWLABR,'” Ann explained in 2010, the year Red Velvet Car came out. “Later when I wrote the words, they were really angry and they just blasted out of me, like I might have just as well said, ‘What the fuck?'”

 

Album: Fanatic (2012)
Most-played: “Dear Old America”
Least-played: “A Million Miles”

Fanatic, Heart’s 15th studio album, will close this list. (As mentioned, we’re not including 2016’s Beautiful Broken given that it consists of mainly re-recordings of older songs.) Despite being comparatively recent, only three of Fanatic‘s songs have not been played live yet: “Skin and Bones,” “Pennsylvania” and “Corduroy Road.” That makes “A Million Miles” the next least-played with two performances, which happened just days apart from one another in 2019. At the top is “Dear Old America,” a song the Wilson sisters based on their experiences of growing up in a military household.