Nancy Wilson of Heart Shares How the Iconic Riff From ‘Barracuda’ Was Borrowed From a Nazareth Song

On an episode of the Loudwire series Gear Factor, legendary guitarist Nancy Wilson of the band Heart shared how she and her sister Ann Wilson became involved in music, how The Beatles inspired them at a young age, where they played their first gig and how they borrowed the iconic riff at the beginning of “Barracuda” from the cover of the Joni Mitchell song “This Flight Tonight” by Nazareth.

We’d been opening for a band called Nazareth in Europe …and Nazareth had a hit with a Joni Mitchell song they covered called ‘This Flight Tonight’ that kind of had that riff. So we kind of borrowed that and we made it into ‘Barracuda’. And then we saw the guys from Nazareth later and they were pissed.