Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler who turned 72 on March 26. Few “frontmen” have their charisma or maintain a being so enviable at their age. After 15 studio albums and almost 70 singles behind them, the band has recorded countless songs that will pass to posterity. We are going to honor the legends by telling some curiosities and facts that exist behind the 10 Aerosmith most iconic songs:
1. Dream On
The starting gun, first single, first album… It goes without saying that it is one of the flagship songs of the Boston boys and occupies the 172nd position of the 500 best songs of all time according to the Rolling Stones.
Although the album was released in 1973, “Dream On” was written by vocalist Steven Tyler at the age of 17, in 1965. His father, a musician who studied at Juilliard was a lover of the piano and Tyler literally grew up under him. as he comments in his biography: “And that’s where I grew up, listening and living between the notes of Chopin, Bach or Beethoven. That’s where the chord strings for Dream On came from ”.
It was first played to an audience in November 1971, when Steven Tyler’s former band Chain Reaction performed at Connecticut’s Shaboo Inn in exchange for a bottle of gin and $ 175.
2. Walk This Way
When this track came to light in 1975, Aerosmith had not yet reached the heights of popularity they achieved a year later with the album ‘Rocks’. Although the audience’s response was correct, “Walk This Way” may not have received the recognition it deserved.
The riff characteristic emerged in 1974, during a soundcheck in Honolulu (Hawaii) where Aerosmith had gone to open for Guess Who. “During testing, I was messing around with a few riffs in my head. I asked Joey Kramer for something flat with a groove on the drums and the riff of what would be “Walk This Way came out on its own, almost as if it fell off my hands,” Joe Perry said.
3. Dude, Looks Like A Lady
“Dude, Looks Like A Lady!” Steven Tyler’s fame as a womanizer is well known and this time he almost played a trick on him. This song, released as the second single from the 1987 album ‘Permanent Vacation’, has a more than curious history.
It turns out that the Aerosmith frontman was out partying looking for fun when he bumped into a blonde mane from behind in tight leather pants. Everything was going well until he got close enough to see that who was hiding behind that image was nothing more and nothing less than Vince Neil, the singer of Mötley Crüe. This is also stated by bassist Nikki Sixx in his book “The Heroin Diaries”, although Vince denies it stating that the title came from a bar where he and Steven Tyler used to drink and the waiters dressed in women’s suits.
4. Sweet Emotion
The gossips say that Steven Tyler wrote this song out of frustration with the band. It is true that they were not going through their best time because of the excess of drugs and tensions, which were common among the “Toxic Twins”, because what better nickname than “the toxic twins” to describe Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.
Some of those constant stresses pointed to Joe Perry’s then-wife Elissa as responsible. From those disagreements certain verses of the song were born and not only Steven Tyler spoke about it, since bassist Tom Hamilton also declared: “I could not get close to Joe when she was around, which was all the time.”
Other versions, such as in the movie ‘Be Cool’, starring John Travolta, indicate that the meaning comes from the “sweet emotion” he was experiencing with his young daughters. Be that as it may, Aerosmith had their first Top 40 single.
5. I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing
Who does not know the central theme of the soundtrack of ‘Armaggedon’? They were nominated for Oscars in the category of Best Original Song in 1998 and it was certainly the track Aerosmith hooked a new generation of fans with.
The film’s executives wanted to hit the table by putting a renowned group on the soundtrack. They first thought of U2 but when Liv Tyler joined the cast of the film with Ben Affleck or Bruce Willis, it was clear that it had to be Aerosmith.
6. Crazy
A rock ballad that took over the success. His name was at the top of the charts. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Desmond Child were the authors and it was part of the album “Get a Grip” (1993). Also, not to be outdone, had its great clip starring two girls who escape from school and travel the city in a convertible car. Young girls do everything: take photos, steal produce from a market, dance at a strip club and much more. Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone took over the fantasies of thousands of boys.
7. Cryin
Another ballad and another hit. Also from the beloved album “Get a grip”. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Taylor Rhodes brought this beautiful song to life. Alicia Silverstone is once again the protagonist in the video with the participation of Stephen Dorff. We can also find a cameo by Josh Holloway, who would play Sawyer in the Lost series.
8. Draw The Line
The title track to Aerosmith’s fifth record. By that time, their lifestyle had hooked up with them and their narcotic abuse was limiting their productivity. Tensions were raised when they leased an estate in Armonk, New York to record the album, and the group got quite a little effort done in their six weeks stay.
Steven Tyler’s lyrics are filled with indefinitely debaucherous thoughts that speak of a wild experience with a girl called Carrie. When Rolling Stone asked him about the words “she was a wet-nap winner,” Tyler described: “A wet-nap is something that you wipe babies’ asses with. Back in the day, if you were lucky enough to grab a stewardess on a plane and you came out of the bathroom, all you had to clean up with was a wet-nap. The best lyrics are like the scrambled eggs you have in your head about a situation. And I’ve got this uncanny way of weaving s–t together.”
9. Mama Kin
Also from their first album, a great song that Guns N’ ‘Roses covered in 1986. Here you can see the two groups playing it and even if you pay attention you will hear how Tyler makes a mistake in an entry. You know, singers: it happens even to the oldest.
“Mama Kin” is Steven Tyler’s opinion of spiritual energy that forces creativity and pleasure. “Keep in touch with Mama Kin” means identifying the motives that inspire you to shine.
10. Janie’s Got a Gun
This tune is about a girl who kills her father because he is sexually violating her. Steven Tyler, who penned the lyric, described in the Walk This Way autobiography: “That song is about a girl getting raped and pillaged by her father. It’s about incest, something that happens to a lot of kids who don’t even find out about it until they find themselves trying to work through some major f–king neuroses.”
Steven Tyler began composing the tune in his bunker, which was when he came up with the words “Janie’s got a gun.” He suddenly sat on it for months, “waiting for the oracle door to open.” Tyler said to Rolling Stone it only grew a tune about child exploitation after, “I looked over at a Time magazine and saw this article on 48 hours, minute by minute, of handgun deaths in the United States.” He continued: “Then I got off on the child-abuse angle. I’d heard this woman speaking about how many children are attacked by their mothers and fathers. It was f—ing scary. I felt, man, I gotta sing about this. And that was it. That was my toe in the door.”