1981 Power Ballad Flopped Until a Name Change Sent It to No. 1

If at first your song is a flop, try recording it again under a different band name. That's not exactly how the saying goes, but it is the lesson Marv Ross of Quarterflash learned back in the '80s.

You probably haven't thought about Quarterflash in a minute, but the band had a huge hit in 1981 with the song "Harden My Heart," which went to #1 on the Billboard Rock Top Tracks chart and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. That wasn't the first time the song made the rounds, though.

As Ross explained in a 2021 interview with Rediscover the '80s, the song was first recorded as a single in 1980 by Quarterflash's unfortunately named predecessor band, Seafood Mama.

"A friend of mine gave me the title," Ross explained. "I came up with the lyrics very quickly. The title came first and I don't really remember how the rest came about. I usually write the music and words simultaneously."

"It wasn't a personal story - just made it up," Ross continued. "The chords are simple but voiced so as to make it sound more complex than it is. The whole song is really the groove which we called a shuffle in those days. Rindy [Ross] came up with the sax line. The whole thing was written in less than a week and recorded in our basement for the Seafood Mama version."

Seafood Mama's new name was inspired by an Australian phrase

While the basement version of "Harden My Heart" wasn't a chart-topper, it did manage to sell 10,000 copies in Portland and Seattle - and according to Ross, was the "key" to getting the band signed to Geffen Records. Around this time, Seafood Mama began considering a name change, as Classic Rock Revisited reported. Their new moniker came from a book of Australian phrases including "Quarterflash," used to describe newcomers to their country as "one-quarter flash and three-parts foolish."

After signing a record deal, the renamed band recorded "Harden My Heart" again, this time in a real studio.

"My guitar solo was changed, for the better, I believe, but that was the only thing really changed. Of course, it was recorded at the Record Plant in L.A. instead of in our basement in Portland, so the sounds of everything were better," Ross explained.

"We thought it sounded like a hit song, but you never know, of course. It was very fun to hear it on the radio - we'd always turn it up when it came on," he added.

Of course, plenty of other people felt the same way about the song, as it turned out. (But would they ever have heard it in the first place if Seafood Mama never became Quarterflash?)

Related: 1980 Soft Rock Ballad Flopped-Then It Became a No. 1 Hit 5 Years Later

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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 8:04 PM.