HEART tell it like it is

Maybe one of Heart's most obscure big hits? From 1980, it has a truly impressive lead vocal by Ann Wilson.

 

She could sing the phone book and it would sound good, but I almost always skip that song along with "Rock and Roll" when playing Greatest Hits.

 

Perfectly good version, but the oriiginal is still the greatest. Good on Heart for reviving it at a time when Neville was largely forgotten, though.

 

I love HEART, I adore Nancy and Ann (in that order - lol) and I have always loved women singing songs like this one, but for some reason it grates on me and I have absolutely no fathomable idea why. Obviously, it's the perfect formula for me to swoon over, but I can't.

It is very under rated, and a very good song from them, and it fits in well during their transitional period from rockin' bad asses to new wave before being dropped by CBS awesomeness.

 

Heart's version is quite enjoyable and yet slightly more soulful than the familiar versions from Aaron Neville and Billy Joe Royal. My question is whether or not Heart's classic rock and hard rock fan base would be able to accept their interpretation of such a song in the first place.

 

michael mcdonald's 'tell it like it is' is my go to version, stunningly good.

 

If you ask Ann about that song these days she says she hates the way she sung it. She says that looking back her delivery should have been more mellow, soulful and restrained like the original, but at that period of her career she (in her opinion) was oversinging everything. So one of the things that makes this Heart record great, Ann's 3 octaves going crazy, is the thing she detests about it.

Bottom line she said she didn't really understand what the song really was saying when she recorded it, she just wanted to show off a little. Interestingly, she feels that way about the entire Private Audition album too -- she oversang everything, especially City's Burning, in her opinion.

 

Back to "Tell It Like It Is", the band did a fine job and Ann showed she could sing soul music as well as rock with a strong performance. I was surprised they did not have songs with an r&b influence on the next album (Private Audition). I remember a review of "This Man Is Mine" that called it "Motown influenced". I just thought it was not strong enough to be a lead single...

 

I heard Heart's version of "Tell It Like It Is" long before I knew who Aaron Neville was. Ann's "over the top" vocal sounds perfect for Heart's version (I also love how she substitutes "I don't want no little boy" for the "I'm not a little boy" line heard in the original. That being said, the Aaron Neville version has slowly become my go to version

 

The Etta James version is the benchmark for me but I do like Hearts version a lot.

 

I never liked it...one of their weaker tracks.

 

I dig Heart. A lot. I hate that song.

 

Heart are one of my favourite bands of all time and Ann Wilson one of all-time favourite singers but this song has never appealed to me. It’s one I usually skip...’This Man Is Mine’ is another.

 

I know what you mean. I like it, but it was definitely a novelty song for them.

 

I had a bit of a Heart revival this past year and have always enjoyed this song. I never knew there was a video for it until recently.



Although I agree with an earlier post in this thread that the song is a transitional bridge from the 70s incarnation of the band to how they would play out in the 80s.

 

When it came out it was almost like a novelty song from them. It's quite good, but nowadays Ann Wilson hates the way she sung it. She said in an interview she should have sung it soulfully and more mellow, but instead her voice was a sledgehammer trying to hit a tack. I tend to agree with her on the delivery, but I still think she and that band did a good job of it, especially considering how out of character it was for them at the time.

Trivia: At that time after five albums this song was only their second Top 10 hit. Obviously since then they've had a ton of Top 10 singles, but back then they were more of an AOR album track type of band and most of their now-classic songs barely cracked the Top 40 if making it that high at all.

 

No hesitation.

 

Loved Aaron’s version as a kid and thought Heart ruined it.

 

That's pretty much me, too. I had a decent grounding in most '60's Soul and R&B at that time (my early teen years) but somehow I wasn't familiar with either Aaron or his brothers. I can remember the Heart version playing on the radio as my aunt was driving me home from school and she told me that it was a cover.

 

I love Heart's version. I was just "coming of age" music-wise when this song was out and it really introduced me to the band in the '80s.

 

Ya, it's a cheese sandwich.

 

Aaron Neville for the win