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==Background==
==Background==
In January 1973, Aerosmith released its [[Aerosmith (album)|debut album]] to little fanfare. As guitarist [[Joe Perry (musician)|Joe Perry]] recalled in the 1997 band memoir ''Walk This Way'', "There was no nothing at all: no press, no radio, no airplay, no reviews, no interviews, no party. Instead the album got ignored and there was a lot of anger and flipping out."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=181}} The band had been somewhat nervous recording their first album, with vocalist [[Steven Tyler]] going so far to alter his singing voice, and they had very little chemistry with producer [[Adrian Barber]]. The band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon-like basement of a store called Drummer's Image on Newbury Street.{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=130|2014}} By the time they began recording ''Get Your Wings'', however, [[Jack Douglas (record producer)|Jack Douglas]] had agreed to work with the band, beginning a long and successful studio collaboration. According to Perry, Columbia had wanted the band to work with [[Bob Ezrin]], who was also a producer with [[Alice Cooper]]. It was Ezrin who introduced the band to Douglas, and for "all practical purposes, Jack became our producer. Ezrin might have shown up three or four times, but only to make suggestions, like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound."{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=131|2014}}
In January 1973, Aerosmith released its [[Aerosmith (album)|debut album]] to little fanfare. As guitarist [[Joe Perry (musician)|Joe Perry]] recalled in the 1997 band memoir ''Walk This Way'', "There was no nothing at all: no press, no radio, no airplay, no reviews, no interviews, no party. Instead the album got ignored and there was a lot of anger and flipping out."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=181}} The band had been somewhat nervous recording their first album, with vocalist [[Steven Tyler]] going so far to alter his singing voice, and they had very little chemistry with producer [[Adrian Barber]]. In response to the album's lack of success, the group toured extensively and built their fanbase, taking a break in December 1973 to record their follow up album. The group recorded the album at New York's [[Record Plant]], with [[Jack Douglas (record producer)|Jack Douglas]] serving as the producer. Douglas would go on to record several albums with the group.


==Writing==
⚫
==Recording and composition==
⚫
Like their first album, the group began the sessions with several of the songs already written. Their cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin" had long been part of their concert repertoire, and the group had been playing new songs "[[S.O.S. (Too Bad)]]" and "Pandora's Box" in concert since September 1973. "[[Seasons of Wither]]" and "Woman of the World" also predated the sessions, while "Spaced" and "[[Lord of the Thighs]]" were written during the sessions. In 1997, Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer [[Stephen Davis (music journalist)|Stephen Davis]]:{{blockquote|The tracks were the stuff we'd been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of '73. I wrote the riff to "[[Same Old Song and Dance]]" one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along. "Spaced" happened the same way in the studio, with a lot of input from Jack. "[[S.O.S. (Too Bad)|S.O.S.]]" meant "Same Old Shit" and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer's Image{{nbsp}}... "[[Lord of the Thighs]]" and "[[Seasons of Wither]]" were Steven's songs. Of all the ballads Aerosmith has done, "Wither" was the one I liked best.{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=213}}}}
⚫
''Get Your Wings'' was recorded at the [[Record Plant]] in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974. Jay Messina engineered the sessions. Douglas later recalled, "To the best of my memory, the preproduction work for ''Get Your Wings'' started in the back of a restaurant that was like a [[American Mafia|Mob]] hangout in the [[North End, Boston|North End]]. I commuted there from the [[Copley Plaza Hotel]] and they started to play me the songs they had for their new album. My attitude was: 'What can I do to make them sound like themselves?'"{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|pp=212–213}}

⚫
In 1997, Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer [[Stephen Davis (music journalist)|Stephen Davis]]:{{blockquote|The tracks were the stuff we'd been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of '73. I wrote the riff to "[[Same Old Song and Dance]]" one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along. "Spaced" happened the same way in the studio, with a lot of input from Jack. "[[S.O.S. (Too Bad)|S.O.S.]]" meant "Same Old Shit" and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer's Image{{nbsp}}... "[[Lord of the Thighs]]" and "[[Seasons of Wither]]" were Steven's songs. Of all the ballads Aerosmith has done, "Wither" was the one I liked best.{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=213}}}}


In his autobiography, Tyler writes that some songs like "Seasons of Wither" had been "germinating in my head for a long time, but the other more sinister tracks, like 'Lord of the Thighs', came from the seedy area where we recorded the album. 'Lord of the Thighs' was about a pimp and the wildlife out on the street."{{sfn|Tyler|Dalton|2011|p=114}} Tyler plays the piano on the track, the opening beat of which is similar to the one Kramer would play a year later in "[[Walk This Way]]". He stated that the title was a pun on the famous [[William Golding]] novel ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'', and "the critics hated us for this. We weren't supposed to be smart enough to use literary references."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}}
In his autobiography, Tyler writes that some songs like "Seasons of Wither" had been "germinating in my head for a long time, but the other more sinister tracks, like 'Lord of the Thighs', came from the seedy area where we recorded the album. 'Lord of the Thighs' was about a pimp and the wildlife out on the street."{{sfn|Tyler|Dalton|2011|p=114}} Tyler plays the piano on the track, the opening beat of which is similar to the one Kramer would play a year later in "[[Walk This Way]]". He stated that the title was a pun on the famous [[William Golding]] novel ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'', and "the critics hated us for this. We weren't supposed to be smart enough to use literary references."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}}


"Same Old Song and Dance" was built around a riff that Joe Perry came up with while sitting on his amp. Steven Tyler quickly came up with the lyrics, which are sung in sync with the main riff. The song is known for its upbeat rhythm and the duelling guitars of Perry and [[Brad Whitford]], along with interspersed horns.
⚫
Tyler remembers, "When I wrote the music to "Seasons of Wither" I grabbed the old acoustic guitar Joey found in the garbage on Beacon Street with no strings. I put four strings on it, which is all it would take because it was so warped, went to the basement, and tried to find the words to match the scat sounds in my head, like automatic writing. The place was a mess, and I moved all the shit aside, put a rug down, popped three Tuinals, snorted some blow, sat down on the floor, tuned the guitar to that tuning, that special tuning that I thought I came up with.<ref>Tyler, Steven. 2011. Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: The Autobiography. HarperCollins UK.</ref> He continues, "Seasons of Wither" was about the winter landscape near this house I was living in with Joey near an old chicken farm. I used to lie in my bed at dawn, listening to the wind in the bare trees, how lonely and melancholy it sounded. One night I went down to the basement where we had a rug on the floor and a couple of boxes for furniture and took a few [[Tuinal|Tuinals]] and a few [[Secobarbital|Seconals]] and I scooped up this guitar Joey gave me, this dumpster guitar, and I lit some incense and wrote "Seasons of Wither"."<ref>Davis, Stephen, and Aerosmith (Musical Group. 2003. Walk This Way : The Autobiography of Aerosmith. New York: Harpercollins.</ref>


"Thighs", as it is commonly abbreviated on setlists and elsewhere, was supposedly the last song written for ''Get Your Wings.'' The band needed one additional song for the album, so they locked themselves in Studio C at the [[Record Plant]] in New York City and came up with this song, based on the unsavory characters near their hotel on [[Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)|Eighth Avenue]].<ref name=huxley>{{cite book|title=Aerosmith: The Fall and the Rise of Rock's Greatest Band|author=Huxley, M.|pages=36–37|year=1995|isbn=0-312-11737-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith|author=Aerosmith, Davis, S.|pages=201–202|year=2003|isbn=0-06-051580-5}}</ref><ref name=power>{{cite book|title=Aerosmith|author=Power, M.|year=1997|pages=13–14|isbn=0-7119-5598-0}}</ref> The tongue-in-cheek lyrics are filled with [[double entendres]] and innuendo, and the song is darker than it first appears.<ref name=huxley/><ref name=power/> In its opening, the drum beat sounds very similar to "[[Walk This Way]]" and the song also features lead guitar work by [[Brad Whitford]] and piano playing by Steven Tyler.
One of the most well-known tracks is a cover of "[[Train Kept A-Rollin']]", made popular by one of Aerosmith's favorite bands, [[the Yardbirds]]. According to Douglas, the crowd noise at the end of the track was taken from a "wild track" from ''[[The Concert for Bangladesh (album)|The Concert for Bangladesh]]'', which he had worked on.{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}} The single version omits the echo and crowd noise. Notable for its start/stop groove, the song became a core part of the band's live set for a time, and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career. In 1997, drummer [[Joey Kramer]] explained to Alan Di Perna of ''[[Guitar World]]'' that its unique rhythmic feel originated "probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a [[James Brown]] kind of beat behind it. I played with a lot of R&B-type groups before joining Aerosmith." In the same interview, Perry stated that "Train" was the one song "we all had in common when we came together."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Di Perna |first=Alan |date=March 1997 |title=Aerosmith |magazine=[[Guitar World]] |volume=17 |issue=3}}</ref>

"Woman of the World" was written by [[Steven Tyler]] and former [[Chain Reaction (1960s band)|Chain Reaction]] band-mate, Don Solomon.

The cover of "[[Train Kept A-Rollin']]" was previously made popular by one of Aerosmith's favorite bands, [[the Yardbirds]]. [[Steven Tyler]], [[Joe Perry (musician)|Joe Perry]], and [[Tom Hamilton (musician)|Tom Hamilton]] had performed the song prior to joining Aerosmith. Perry stated that "Train" was the one song "we all had in common when we came together."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Di Perna |first=Alan |date=March 1997 |title=Aerosmith |magazine=[[Guitar World]] |volume=17 |issue=3}}</ref> Steven's band had played 'Train' and Tom and I played it in our band&nbsp;... It's a blues song, if you follow its roots all the way back&nbsp;... I always thought if I could just play one song, it would be that one because of what it does to me".{{sfn|Birnbaum|2012|p=52}} Perry's band began performing the song regularly after he had been moved by the performance of "Stroll On" in ''Blowup''; Tyler recalled his band opened for the Yardbirds in 1966: "I had seen the Yardbirds play somewhere the previous summer with both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page in the band&nbsp;... In Westport [at their supporting gig on October 22, 1966] we found out that Jeff had left the band and Jimmy was playing lead guitar by himself. I watched him from the edge of the stage and all I can say is that he knocked my tits off. They did 'Train Kept A-Rollin'<nowiki>'</nowiki> and it was just so heavy. They were just an un-fuckin'-believable band.{{sfn|Davis|2003|p=48}} The song was an early feature of Aerosmith's concerts and a frequent show closer, including for their first gig in 1970.{{sfn|Davis|2003|pp=108–109}} Notable for its start/stop groove, the song became a core part of the band's live set for a time, and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career. In 1997, drummer [[Joey Kramer]] explained to Alan Di Perna of ''[[Guitar World]]'' that its unique rhythmic feel originated "probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a [[James Brown]] kind of beat behind it. I played with a lot of R&B-type groups before joining Aerosmith."

⚫
Tyler remembers, "When I wrote the music to "Seasons of Wither" I grabbed the old acoustic guitar Joey found in the garbage on Beacon Street with no strings. I put four strings on it, which is all it would take because it was so warped, went to the basement, and tried to find the words to match the scat sounds in my head, like automatic writing. The place was a mess, and I moved all the shit aside, put a rug down, popped three Tuinals, snorted some blow, sat down on the floor, tuned the guitar to that tuning, that special tuning that I thought I came up with.<ref>Tyler, Steven. 2011. Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: The Autobiography. HarperCollins UK.</ref> He continues, "Seasons of Wither" was about the winter landscape near this house I was living in with Joey near an old chicken farm. I used to lie in my bed at dawn, listening to the wind in the bare trees, how lonely and melancholy it sounded. One night I went down to the basement where we had a rug on the floor and a couple of boxes for furniture and took a few [[Tuinal|Tuinals]] and a few [[Secobarbital|Seconals]] and I scooped up this guitar Joey gave me, this dumpster guitar, and I lit some incense and wrote "Seasons of Wither"."<ref>Davis, Stephen, and Aerosmith (Musical Group. 2003. Walk This Way : The Autobiography of Aerosmith. New York: Harpercollins.</ref>


The closing "[[Pandora's Box]]" was originally written by Kramer, who recalled in 1997: "The summer before, we'd rented a farmhouse in [[East Thetford, Vermont]], while we were rehearsing in [[New Hampshire]], and that's where I wrote the melody of 'Pandora's Box.' Steven wrote the lines about women's liberation, a big new issue in those times."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=215}} According to Douglas, the clarinet at the start of the track is a union engineer playing "[[I'm in the Mood for Love]]".{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}}
The closing "[[Pandora's Box]]" was originally written by Kramer, who recalled in 1997: "The summer before, we'd rented a farmhouse in [[East Thetford, Vermont]], while we were rehearsing in [[New Hampshire]], and that's where I wrote the melody of 'Pandora's Box.' Steven wrote the lines about women's liberation, a big new issue in those times."{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=215}} According to Douglas, the clarinet at the start of the track is a union engineer playing "[[I'm in the Mood for Love]]".{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}}


⚫
==Recording==
In 2014 Perry reflected, "We all put in endless hours, fueled by whatever substances were available{{nbsp}}... I knew the album, in spite of a few bright spots, still didn't capture the power of the band. We were better than the record we were making. And yet I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know how to get from good to great."{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=132|2014}}
''Get Your Wings'' was recorded at the [[Record Plant]] in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974. [[Jack Douglas (record producer)|Jack Douglas]] served as producer and Jay Messina engineered the sessions. Douglas, a Record Plant engineer, had prevoiusly worked with [[The Who]], [[John Lennon]] and [[Patti Smith]].<ref>Soundworks Collection. September 3, 2014. Soundworkscollection.com. Accessed January 15, 2024. https://soundworkscollection.com/post/soundworks-collection-interview-series-jack-douglas.</ref> Douglas was asked by Aerosmith's managers Leber and Krebs to produce the sessions after success engineering the debut for one of their other artists, [[The New York Dolls]]. Douglas lived in Greenwich Village and hung out at Max's Kansas City and had close relationships with the Dolls, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and other members of that artistic community. After successfully reigning in the rambuctious and drug-addled New York Dolls, Douglas remembers Aerosmith's managers asking, "'Maybe you'd like to take a look at our baby band?' which was Aerosmith. 'We don't know if they're going any good or not!...' I said 'Sure, send me off to Boston hear them!' Because of my love for [[the Yardbirds]], after the show, we sat down, we started to talk about [Jimmy] Page and Eric [Clapton] and the guitar sound, the influence of the band. It turned out that we had so much in common, the band and myself, that we just hit it off. And so we started a very long relationship."<ref>Bootz, An Interview with Legendary John Lennon and Aerosmith Producer, Jack Douglas. Audiofanzine. May 28, 2014. https://en.audiofanzine.com/sound-technique/editorial/articles/get-your-wings.html.</ref> According to Perry, Columbia had wanted the band to work with [[Bob Ezrin]], who was also a producer with [[Alice Cooper]]. It was Ezrin who introduced the band to Douglas, and for "all practical purposes, Jack became our producer. Ezrin might have shown up three or four times, but only to make suggestions, like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound."{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=131|2014}}

⚫
Prior to the sessions, the band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon-like basement of a store called Drummer's Image on Newbury Street.{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=130|2014}} Douglas later recalled, "To the best of my memory, the preproduction work for ''Get Your Wings'' started in the back of a restaurant that was like a [[American Mafia|Mob]] hangout in the [[North End, Boston|North End]]. I commuted there from the [[Copley Plaza Hotel]] and they started to play me the songs they had for their new album. My attitude was: 'What can I do to make them sound like themselves?'"{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|pp=212–213}}

Douglas invited outside guitarists and a saxophone player to play on some of the tracks. [[Dick Wagner]] ([[Alice Cooper]], [[Lou Reed]]) plays the guitar solo on the ''Get Your Wings'' recording.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wagnermusic.com/discography.htm|title=The Official Dick Wagner Website|work=wagnermusic.com}}</ref> "On 'Same Old Song And Dance', I told them that we should bring in some horns to bring out their [[rhythm and blues]] side," said producer [[Jack Douglas (record producer)|Jack Douglas]]. "They definitely had that kind of style and sound already. We got the [[Brecker Brothers]] to play on that. The sax solo is [[Michael Brecker]]."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/production-legend-jack-douglas-on-18-career-defining-records-568681|title = Production legend Jack Douglas on 18 career-defining records| date=19 December 2012 }}</ref>

For "Train Kept A-Rollin'", the group desired to capture a live version of the song, but producer [[Jack Douglas (record producer)|Jack Douglas]] persuaded them to record a studio version instead. The song was recorded in two parts, with the second half featuring a faux-live sound. To create the live sound, Douglas overdubbed crowd noise from [[The Concert for Bangladesh]], the 1971 benefit organized by [[George Harrison]]. [[Steve Hunter]] and [[Dick Wagner]], who worked with [[Lou Reed]] and [[Alice Cooper]], were brought in to record the guitar parts. According to Hunter, "We [Wagner and I] wanted to keep the solos equal so we'd sit down&nbsp;... and go through the material so it was totally even&nbsp;... We didn't want it to look like there was a rhythm guitar player and a lead guitar player, because that's what we both did".{{sfn|Birnbaum|2012|p=53}} Hunter later elaborated: "Aerosmith was in Studio C of The Record Plant and I was doing work with Bob Ezrin in Studio A. I had a long wait between dubs and was waiting in the lobby. Jack Douglas popped his head out of Studio C and asked 'Hey, do you feel like playing?' I said sure, so I grabbed my guitar and went in&nbsp;... I had two run-throughs, then Jack said 'great that's it!' That turned out to be the opening solos on 'Train Kept A Rollin'".<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.detroitrocknrollmagazine.com/2015/02/aerosmiths-train-kept-rollin-who-did.html | title = Who Really Played the Guitar Solos on Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin"? | website = Detroit Rock n Roll Magazine | date = February 16, 2015 | access-date = March 25, 2015}}</ref> According to Douglas, the crowd noise at the end of the track was taken from a "wild track" from ''[[The Concert for Bangladesh (album)|The Concert for Bangladesh]]'', which he had worked on.{{sfn|Davis|Aerosmith|1997|p=217}} The single version omits the echo and crowd noise.


"On the second album," Tyler noted, "the songs found my voice. I realized that it's not about having a beautiful voice and hitting all the notes; it's about attitude."<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Paul |last=Brannigan |title=Aerosmith |magazine=[[Classic Rock (magazine)|Classic Rock]] |issue=188 |date=September 2013 |page=56}}</ref>
In 2014 Perry reflected, "We all put in endless hours, fueled by whatever substances were available{{nbsp}}... I knew the album, in spite of a few bright spots, still didn't capture the power of the band. We were better than the record we were making. And yet I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know how to get from good to great."{{sfn|Perry|Ritz|p=132|2014}} "On the second album," Tyler noted, "the songs found my voice. I realized that it's not about having a beautiful voice and hitting all the notes; it's about attitude."<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Paul |last=Brannigan |title=Aerosmith |magazine=[[Classic Rock (magazine)|Classic Rock]] |issue=188 |date=September 2013 |page=56}}</ref>


==Critical reception==
==Critical reception==

Revision as of 19:38, 15 January 2024

Get Your Wings
Studio album by
Aerosmith
ReleasedMarch 15, 1974[1]
RecordedDecember 17, 1973 – January 14, 1974
StudioRecord Plant, New York City
Genre
Length38:04
LabelColumbia
Producer
Aerosmith chronology
Aerosmith
(1973) 		Get Your Wings
(1974) 		Toys in the Attic
(1975)
Singles from Get Your Wings
  1. "Same Old Song and Dance"
    Released: March 1974
  2. "Train Kept A Rollin' (single edit)"
    Released: October 1974[4]
  3. "S.O.S. (Too Bad)"
    Released: February 1975

Get Your Wings is the second studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released on March 15, 1974. The album was their first to be produced by Jack Douglas, who also was responsible for the band's next three albums. Three singles were released from the album, but none reached the singles charts.

The album has been released in stereo and quadraphonic, and certified triple platinum by the RIAA.[5]

Background

In January 1973, Aerosmith released its debut album to little fanfare. As guitarist Joe Perry recalled in the 1997 band memoir Walk This Way, "There was no nothing at all: no press, no radio, no airplay, no reviews, no interviews, no party. Instead the album got ignored and there was a lot of anger and flipping out."[6] The band had been somewhat nervous recording their first album, with vocalist Steven Tyler going so far to alter his singing voice, and they had very little chemistry with producer Adrian Barber. In response to the album's lack of success, the group toured extensively and built their fanbase, taking a break in December 1973 to record their follow up album. The group recorded the album at New York's Record Plant, with Jack Douglas serving as the producer. Douglas would go on to record several albums with the group.

Writing

Like their first album, the group began the sessions with several of the songs already written. Their cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin" had long been part of their concert repertoire, and the group had been playing new songs "S.O.S. (Too Bad)" and "Pandora's Box" in concert since September 1973. "Seasons of Wither" and "Woman of the World" also predated the sessions, while "Spaced" and "Lord of the Thighs" were written during the sessions. In 1997, Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer Stephen Davis:

The tracks were the stuff we'd been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of '73. I wrote the riff to "Same Old Song and Dance" one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along. "Spaced" happened the same way in the studio, with a lot of input from Jack. "S.O.S." meant "Same Old Shit" and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer's Image ... "Lord of the Thighs" and "Seasons of Wither" were Steven's songs. Of all the ballads Aerosmith has done, "Wither" was the one I liked best.[7]

In his autobiography, Tyler writes that some songs like "Seasons of Wither" had been "germinating in my head for a long time, but the other more sinister tracks, like 'Lord of the Thighs', came from the seedy area where we recorded the album. 'Lord of the Thighs' was about a pimp and the wildlife out on the street."[8] Tyler plays the piano on the track, the opening beat of which is similar to the one Kramer would play a year later in "Walk This Way". He stated that the title was a pun on the famous William Golding novel Lord of the Flies, and "the critics hated us for this. We weren't supposed to be smart enough to use literary references."[9]

"Same Old Song and Dance" was built around a riff that Joe Perry came up with while sitting on his amp. Steven Tyler quickly came up with the lyrics, which are sung in sync with the main riff. The song is known for its upbeat rhythm and the duelling guitars of Perry and Brad Whitford, along with interspersed horns.

"Thighs", as it is commonly abbreviated on setlists and elsewhere, was supposedly the last song written for Get Your Wings. The band needed one additional song for the album, so they locked themselves in Studio C at the Record Plant in New York City and came up with this song, based on the unsavory characters near their hotel on Eighth Avenue.[10][11][12] The tongue-in-cheek lyrics are filled with double entendres and innuendo, and the song is darker than it first appears.[10][12] In its opening, the drum beat sounds very similar to "Walk This Way" and the song also features lead guitar work by Brad Whitford and piano playing by Steven Tyler.

"Woman of the World" was written by Steven Tyler and former Chain Reaction band-mate, Don Solomon.

The cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" was previously made popular by one of Aerosmith's favorite bands, the Yardbirds. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, and Tom Hamilton had performed the song prior to joining Aerosmith. Perry stated that "Train" was the one song "we all had in common when we came together."[13] Steven's band had played 'Train' and Tom and I played it in our band ... It's a blues song, if you follow its roots all the way back ... I always thought if I could just play one song, it would be that one because of what it does to me".[14] Perry's band began performing the song regularly after he had been moved by the performance of "Stroll On" in Blowup; Tyler recalled his band opened for the Yardbirds in 1966: "I had seen the Yardbirds play somewhere the previous summer with both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page in the band ... In Westport [at their supporting gig on October 22, 1966] we found out that Jeff had left the band and Jimmy was playing lead guitar by himself. I watched him from the edge of the stage and all I can say is that he knocked my tits off. They did 'Train Kept A-Rollin'' and it was just so heavy. They were just an un-fuckin'-believable band.[15] The song was an early feature of Aerosmith's concerts and a frequent show closer, including for their first gig in 1970.[16] Notable for its start/stop groove, the song became a core part of the band's live set for a time, and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career. In 1997, drummer Joey Kramer explained to Alan Di Perna of Guitar World that its unique rhythmic feel originated "probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a James Brown kind of beat behind it. I played with a lot of R&B-type groups before joining Aerosmith."

Tyler remembers, "When I wrote the music to "Seasons of Wither" I grabbed the old acoustic guitar Joey found in the garbage on Beacon Street with no strings. I put four strings on it, which is all it would take because it was so warped, went to the basement, and tried to find the words to match the scat sounds in my head, like automatic writing. The place was a mess, and I moved all the shit aside, put a rug down, popped three Tuinals, snorted some blow, sat down on the floor, tuned the guitar to that tuning, that special tuning that I thought I came up with.[17] He continues, "Seasons of Wither" was about the winter landscape near this house I was living in with Joey near an old chicken farm. I used to lie in my bed at dawn, listening to the wind in the bare trees, how lonely and melancholy it sounded. One night I went down to the basement where we had a rug on the floor and a couple of boxes for furniture and took a few Tuinals and a few Seconals and I scooped up this guitar Joey gave me, this dumpster guitar, and I lit some incense and wrote "Seasons of Wither"."[18]

The closing "Pandora's Box" was originally written by Kramer, who recalled in 1997: "The summer before, we'd rented a farmhouse in East Thetford, Vermont, while we were rehearsing in New Hampshire, and that's where I wrote the melody of 'Pandora's Box.' Steven wrote the lines about women's liberation, a big new issue in those times."[19] According to Douglas, the clarinet at the start of the track is a union engineer playing "I'm in the Mood for Love".[9]

Recording

Get Your Wings was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974. Jack Douglas served as producer and Jay Messina engineered the sessions. Douglas, a Record Plant engineer, had prevoiusly worked with The Who, John Lennon and Patti Smith.[20] Douglas was asked by Aerosmith's managers Leber and Krebs to produce the sessions after success engineering the debut for one of their other artists, The New York Dolls. Douglas lived in Greenwich Village and hung out at Max's Kansas City and had close relationships with the Dolls, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and other members of that artistic community. After successfully reigning in the rambuctious and drug-addled New York Dolls, Douglas remembers Aerosmith's managers asking, "'Maybe you'd like to take a look at our baby band?' which was Aerosmith. 'We don't know if they're going any good or not!...' I said 'Sure, send me off to Boston hear them!' Because of my love for the Yardbirds, after the show, we sat down, we started to talk about [Jimmy] Page and Eric [Clapton] and the guitar sound, the influence of the band. It turned out that we had so much in common, the band and myself, that we just hit it off. And so we started a very long relationship."[21] According to Perry, Columbia had wanted the band to work with Bob Ezrin, who was also a producer with Alice Cooper. It was Ezrin who introduced the band to Douglas, and for "all practical purposes, Jack became our producer. Ezrin might have shown up three or four times, but only to make suggestions, like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound."[22]

Prior to the sessions, the band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon-like basement of a store called Drummer's Image on Newbury Street.[23] Douglas later recalled, "To the best of my memory, the preproduction work for Get Your Wings started in the back of a restaurant that was like a Mob hangout in the North End. I commuted there from the Copley Plaza Hotel and they started to play me the songs they had for their new album. My attitude was: 'What can I do to make them sound like themselves?'"[24]

Douglas invited outside guitarists and a saxophone player to play on some of the tracks. Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper, Lou Reed) plays the guitar solo on the Get Your Wings recording.[25] "On 'Same Old Song And Dance', I told them that we should bring in some horns to bring out their rhythm and blues side," said producer Jack Douglas. "They definitely had that kind of style and sound already. We got the Brecker Brothers to play on that. The sax solo is Michael Brecker."[26]

For "Train Kept A-Rollin'", the group desired to capture a live version of the song, but producer Jack Douglas persuaded them to record a studio version instead. The song was recorded in two parts, with the second half featuring a faux-live sound. To create the live sound, Douglas overdubbed crowd noise from The Concert for Bangladesh, the 1971 benefit organized by George Harrison. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, who worked with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, were brought in to record the guitar parts. According to Hunter, "We [Wagner and I] wanted to keep the solos equal so we'd sit down ... and go through the material so it was totally even ... We didn't want it to look like there was a rhythm guitar player and a lead guitar player, because that's what we both did".[27] Hunter later elaborated: "Aerosmith was in Studio C of The Record Plant and I was doing work with Bob Ezrin in Studio A. I had a long wait between dubs and was waiting in the lobby. Jack Douglas popped his head out of Studio C and asked 'Hey, do you feel like playing?' I said sure, so I grabbed my guitar and went in ... I had two run-throughs, then Jack said 'great that's it!' That turned out to be the opening solos on 'Train Kept A Rollin'".[28] According to Douglas, the crowd noise at the end of the track was taken from a "wild track" from The Concert for Bangladesh, which he had worked on.[9] The single version omits the echo and crowd noise.

In 2014 Perry reflected, "We all put in endless hours, fueled by whatever substances were available ... I knew the album, in spite of a few bright spots, still didn't capture the power of the band. We were better than the record we were making. And yet I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know how to get from good to great."[29] "On the second album," Tyler noted, "the songs found my voice. I realized that it's not about having a beautiful voice and hitting all the notes; it's about attitude."[30]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[31]
Blender[32]
Christgau's Record GuideB−[33]
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal10/10[34]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[35]

Contemporary reviews were mostly positive. In his article for Rolling Stone, Charley Walters praised the LP, writing that "the snarling chords of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford tautly propel each number, jibing neatly with the rawness of singer Steven Tyler, whose discipline is evident no matter how he shrieks, growls, or spits out the lyrics."[36] Billboard reviewer called the music "derivative", but added that the band's "tough and nasty rock'n'roll vision" could be successful with the help of the right producers.[37] Music critic Robert Christgau wrote that the band were "inheritors of the Grand Funk principle: if a band is going to be dumb, it might as well be American dumb. Here they're loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat for the hearing-impaired, at least on side one."[33]

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that Get Your Wings was when Aerosmith "shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, it's where they turned into songwriters, it's where Steven Tyler unveiled his signature obsessions with sex and sleaze ... they're doing their bloozy bluster better and bolder, which is what turns this sophomore effort into their first classic."[31] Ben Mitchell of Blender had the same impression and wrote that Aerosmith locked into their "trademark dirty funk" and "firmly established their simple lyrical blueprint: smut and high times" on this album.[32] Canadian critic Martin Popoff praised the album and called it a "rich, inspired and consistently entertaining rock 'n' roller, a record much more intelligent than much metal to this point in time".[34]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Same Old Song and Dance"Steven Tyler, Joe Perry3:53
2."Lord of the Thighs"Tyler4:14
3."Spaced"Tyler, Perry4:21
4."Woman of the World"Tyler, Don Solomon5:49
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."S.O.S. (Too Bad)"Tyler2:51
2."Train Kept A Rollin'"Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, Lois Mann5:33
3."Seasons of Wither"Tyler5:38
4."Pandora's Box"Tyler, Joey Kramer5:43

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1974) Peak
position
US Billboard 200[40] 74

Certification

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[41] Platinum 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[42] 3× Platinum 3,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ^ "Get Your Wings".
  2. ^ Prato, Greg. "Steven Tyler | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved May 28, 2021.
  3. ^ "The 20 best rock albums of 1974". Classic Rock. August 11, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2021.
  4. ^ Billboard (October 12, 1974). "Top Single Picks: Pop – Recommended". Billboard. Vol. 86, no. 41. p. 51. ISSN 0006-2510. 1st mention of 'Train Kept A Rollin' in Billboard
  5. ^ "RIAA Gold & Platinum Database: search for Aerosmith". RIAA. Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  6. ^ Davis & Aerosmith 1997, p. 181.
  7. ^ Davis & Aerosmith 1997, p. 213.
  8. ^ Tyler & Dalton 2011, p. 114.
  9. ^ a b c Davis & Aerosmith 1997, p. 217.
  10. ^ a b Huxley, M. (1995). Aerosmith: The Fall and the Rise of Rock's Greatest Band. pp. 36–37. ISBN 0-312-11737-X.
  11. ^ Aerosmith, Davis, S. (2003). Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith. pp. 201–202. ISBN 0-06-051580-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ a b Power, M. (1997). Aerosmith. pp. 13–14. ISBN 0-7119-5598-0.
  13. ^ Di Perna, Alan (March 1997). "Aerosmith". Guitar World. Vol. 17, no. 3.
  14. ^ Birnbaum 2012, p. 52.
  15. ^ Davis 2003, p. 48.
  16. ^ Davis 2003, pp. 108–109.
  17. ^ Tyler, Steven. 2011. Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: The Autobiography. HarperCollins UK.
  18. ^ Davis, Stephen, and Aerosmith (Musical Group. 2003. Walk This Way : The Autobiography of Aerosmith. New York: Harpercollins.
  19. ^ Davis & Aerosmith 1997, p. 215.
  20. ^ Soundworks Collection. September 3, 2014. Soundworkscollection.com. Accessed January 15, 2024. https://soundworkscollection.com/post/soundworks-collection-interview-series-jack-douglas.
  21. ^ Bootz, An Interview with Legendary John Lennon and Aerosmith Producer, Jack Douglas. Audiofanzine. May 28, 2014. https://en.audiofanzine.com/sound-technique/editorial/articles/get-your-wings.html.
  22. ^ Perry & Ritz 2014, p. 131.
  23. ^ Perry & Ritz 2014, p. 130.
  24. ^ Davis & Aerosmith 1997, pp. 212–213.
  25. ^ "The Official Dick Wagner Website". wagnermusic.com.
  26. ^ "Production legend Jack Douglas on 18 career-defining records". December 19, 2012.
  27. ^ Birnbaum 2012, p. 53.
  28. ^ "Who Really Played the Guitar Solos on Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin"?". Detroit Rock n Roll Magazine. February 16, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  29. ^ Perry & Ritz 2014, p. 132.
  30. ^ Brannigan, Paul (September 2013). "Aerosmith". Classic Rock. No. 188. p. 56.
  31. ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Aerosmith – Get Your Wings review". AllMusic. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  32. ^ a b Mitchell, Ben. "Backcatalog: Aerosmith – Get Your Wings". Blender. Archived from the original on October 26, 2004. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  33. ^ a b Christgau, Robert. "Get Your Wings". Robert Christgau.
  34. ^ a b Popoff, Martin (October 2003). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 1: The Seventies. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. p. 17. ISBN 978-1894959025.
  35. ^ "Aerosmith Album Guide". Rolling Stone. 2004. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  36. ^ Walters, Charley (June 6, 1974). "Get Your Wings – Aerosmith". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  37. ^ "Aerosmith – Get Your Wings". Super Seventies Rocksite. Superseventies.com. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
  38. ^ Molenda, Michael (December 14, 2017). "Who Really Played Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin'" Guitar Solos?". Guitar World. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  39. ^ "The Official Dick Wagner Website". wagnermusic.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  40. ^ "Aerosmith Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved April 22, 2018.
  41. ^ "Canadian album certifications – Aerosmith – Get Your Wings". Music Canada.
  42. ^ "American album certifications – Aerosmith – Get Your Wings". Recording Industry Association of America.

Bibliography

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