Aerosmith – Same Old Song And Dance

For some reason this post vanished from the reader this morning…so I’m trying a repost.

This is one of my favorite Aerosmith songs. I do prefer them in their 70s period because their sound was so dirty. This was the first single released from Aerosmith’s second album, Get Your Wings. (2 Loud 2 Old Music Review of the album )

The producer of this album caught my attention. Jack Douglas would later produce Cheap Trick and John Lennon’s Double Fantasy. Douglas brought in a horn section on this track.

Joe Perry came up with this riff in the Summer of 1973. The band were living together in a house on Beacon Sreet in Boston. Steven Tyler wrote the lyrics that went together with the riff. One lyric change was “Got you with the cocaine, found with your gun” was altered for the single version to “You shady looking loser, you played with my gun.”

Around this time Clive Davis had been let go from the record company for allegedly using company funds to bankroll his son’s bar mitzvah. He was replaced with Bruce Lundvall and Aerosmith’s management convinced him to put more effort into promoting Aerosmith this time, which he did.

This single didn’t chart but has remained on classic radio. The album peaked at #74 in the Billboard Album charts in 1974. Their next album Toys In The Attic would break them through.

Same Old Song And Dance wasn’t a hit, but it helped sell the album, which stayed on the Billboard album charts for nearly a year as Aerosmith hit the road, establishing themselves as an outstanding live act and growing their fan base.

Joe Perry: 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

Producer Jack Douglas: “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?'”

Same Old Song And Dance

Get yourself cooler, lay yourself low
Coincidental murder, with nothing to show
When the judge’s constipation go to his head
And his wife’s aggravation, you’re soon enough dead
It’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend

Gotcha with the cocaine they found with your gun
No smoothy face lawyer to getcha undone
Say love ain’t the same on the south side of town
You could look, but you ain’t gonna find it around
It’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story, same old story
Same old song and dance

Fate comes a-knockin’, doors start lockin’
Your old time connection, change your direction
Ain’t gonna change it, can’t rearrange it
Can’t stand the pain when it’s all the same to you, my friend

When you’re low down and dirty, from walkin’ the street
With your old hurdy-gurdy, no one to meet
Say love ain’t the same, on the south side of town
You could look, but you ain’t gonna find it around
It’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story, same old story
Same old song and dance, yeah

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