WCSX Classic Cuts : Walk This Way

WCSX Classic Cuts

Aerosmith: "Walk This Way"

The Hook: Steven Tyler likes how he was able to push the envelope in his lyrics without resorting to obscenties.

Album: Toys in the Attic

Year: 1975

Writers: Steven Tyler and Joe Perry

Stats: The second single off Toys in the Attic failed to chart first time out, but re-issued a year later, it reached number-10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The 1986 Run-DMC version, with Tyler and Perry guesting, became the first hip-hop recording ever to reach the Top 5, peaking at number-four.

Background: Steven Tyler says he's proud that he was able to push the envelope lyrically in "Walk This Way" without using any obscene language whatsoever.

Steven Tyler on how he pushed the envelope lyrically on “Walk This Way” without resorting to dirty language. OC:…a minute. :27

“Anybody can use those words, and quite effectively. It's just that that gets redundant because everybody can. But when you write things like: "Backstroke lover always hiding 'neath the cover," "There's a cheerleader, real young bleeder, the times I could reminisce, best times of loving with her sister and her cousin, only started with a little kiss like this," that was real nasty and around the side of the barn to me and I thought, ‘Wow. This is great. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put it down like that.’ And I like that, you know, it makes for real interesting -- nobody knows what the hell you're talking about until two years later after they've heard it so many times, they go, ‘Hmm…wait a minute.’”