The acoustic beginning of Heart's "Crazy on You" is one of the most classic and wonderful openings in rock history. It's also one of the most complicated. In the video above, the great Nancy Wilson says how it's done which, of course, is much easier said than done. From an interview with Wilson in American Songwriter:
The acoustic intro was called "Silver Wheels" and once we had "Crazy On You" going in the studio, I thought, "This is such a cool song!" The signature riff was one that Roger, our then-guitar player, came up with. There was a Moody Blues song ["Question"] that went, "Why do we never get an answer." It had that part – ch, ch, ch, ch. That acoustic rhythm. We were kind of trying to write our own version of "Question." Ann wrote those lyrics one day when I had a bad fever and I was sick. She came into show me the words and I'm like, "Oh my god, those are great!"
So, the song kind of happened pretty organic and quickly. But then when we had the song, we knew how much power it was wielding. I said, "This would be a great first song on the album!" I thought it should have fanfare, sort of like an introduction, almost like a thematic introduction. Dreamboat Annie had a couple of recurring motifs and themes throughout. We weren't afraid to do conceptual stuff like that.
So, I sat down for a couple of days and I wanted to access – there was that song called "Angie" on one of the Paul Simon albums. An instrumental acoustic. And I knew I wanted something like that. A lot of times when you write songs, you're sort of imitating something that you already really love. But you make it your own by the end of the day. So, yeah, it came together in every which way. But it worked out pretty well!
