What Is the Third Most Common Word in Popular Song Titles?

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Heart (Culture): The third most frequent word in the titles of Western popular songs. (Source: Songwriting Essentials)

If aliens were to spend any time studying our popular music, they would undoubtedly wonder why we are obsessed with the heart. Even if they share our custom of pair bonding for reproductive success, this is not the most obvious organ to associate with such things!

The idea that the heart is where emotions reside is actually absurd when you think about it. Yet, this idea is embedded in many human cultures. It is so taken for granted that for some people, it is not even considered up for debate.

As a result, there are tons of songs with “heart” in the title. Based on my admittedly unscientific sampling of lyrics, hearts appear quite susceptible to breakage. Five of these songs are not about that. In the last song, breakage is, if anything, an understatement

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Janis Joplin: “Piece of my Heart,” live, 1968

This clip is remarkable for many reasons. Think about today’s pop stars, many of whom can barely hide their hate and fear of their fans. And for a good reason — a lot of fans today are scary.

Janis broke a lot of barriers. A woman, making it as a headliner in an overwhelmingly sexist business. A white person who did the blues, who WAS the blues. A singer without a singer’s voice, whose raw, broken sound was mesmerizing.

Here, Janis invites the fans to dance with her. No filters. No security. No post-production polishing. No bullshit. What you see is what you get.

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Crucified Barbara: “My Heart is Black” (Acoustic)

Crucified Barbara are one of the great live bands ever to strut the stage. I’ve written about them before:

This was one of their hits, a thrasher which they normally played with the volume turned up to 11. Here, they give us an acoustic rendition, which really allows us to enjoy the expressiveness of Mia Karlssen’s voice

I discovered this band just as they were breaking up. One of my big regrets — I would have loved to see them live.

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Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa: “Your Heart is as Black as Night”

The last song was a confessional; this one is a cry for help. Beth Hart has been compared to Janis and Amy Winehouse. If anything, she goes even further out on a limb. Some of her performances seem to veer completely out of control, yet she never actually loses her way.

Hart did lose her way in her personal life, though, going through a long bout of alcohol and drug abuse before turning things around. Her performances since then channel all the fear and desperation she must have felt during the low points.

Her songs about love and heartbreak never get old. Her performances are meticulously crafted yet feel spontaneous and raw. That is something very few singers can pull off.

Bonamassa is a virtuoso blues and rock guitarist who has built a sizable part of his career around his collaboration with Hart. He arranges many of the songs and knows just how to set the table for her. Every singer should be so lucky.

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Show-Ya: “One Way Heart” (Live, 2017)

This is the greatest arena-rock band you’ve probably never heard of (unless you’ve read some of my earlier articles!) They were founded in 1981 (a few months before Metallica!), locked in their lineup in 1982, and are still touring with that lineup today. They were initially inspired by bands like the Beatles, the Stones, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin.

Show-Ya’s early work consisted mostly of covers of the aforementioned bands and a few others, such as KISS and AC/DC. In the mid-1980s, they began releasing and performing their own material. In parallel with Metallica, they co-invented metal before the term existed, and they never looked back.

Lineup:
Miki Nakamura (keyboards) 9/27/1961
Miki “Sun-Go” Igarashi (guitars) 11/21/1962
Keiko Terada (vocals) 7/27/1963
Satomi Senba (bass) 8/28/1963
Miki Tsunoda (drums) 12/7/1963

Terada has a wonderful rock voice, a sort of husky version of Pat Benatar. Sun-Go is a guitar hero who can play tear-jerking blues and yet go toe-to-toe with the great shredders of the 80s and 90s.

The fact that Show-Ya were not bigger in the U.S. is, in my view, an indictment of the U.S. music establishment, which repeatedly turned down opportunities to promote them here. Instead, we got Foreigner and Bob Seger. Just sayin’.

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Wardruna: “Hertan” (“Heart”)

I love this band and hope to see them live one day. They are hard to describe, but I’ll try. They are sometimes considered a folk music band, but they bring in many elements from northern European mysticism, modern trance, and heavy metal.

Hailing from Norway, they draw on Old Norse legends and runes. The title of their first album translates roughly to “The Primeval Void.” Many of their songs are essentially incantations to nature. They have collaborated with fellow Norwegian nature worshiper Aurora.

Can Music Inspire Us to Save Ourselves? (Part II)

I interpret the “heart” in this song as the world itself. I wonder what you think.

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George Gobel: “You Done Stomped on My Heart” (written by Mason Williams)

As a kid, I loved staying up to watch the Smothers Brothers. They were funny (even if some of the humor was over my head), and their guest acts were a lot of fun. That’s where I first saw this.

Many years later, I was partying with friends, and someone challenged us to name the funniest song titles we had ever heard. Most of the ones that came up were country or country-ish songs like “Drop-Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life,” “How Can I Miss You if You Won’t go Away?” and “All My Exes Live in Texas.” I’d never heard most of them. Then someone mentioned “You Done Stomped on My Heart,” and I blurted out, “Wait, I know that one!”

The backing band in this performance are Spanky and Our Gang. Founded by Elaine “Spanky” MacFarlane, they had a ten-year run of success until 1969, when their lead guitarist died and they disbanded.

Oh, when we took a vote on the funniest song title, this one came in second. The winner was “Take Your Tongue Out Of My Mouth, I’m Kissin’ You Goodbye.”