"Same Old Song and Dance"

On paper, I suspect, the music for "Same Old Song and Dance" isn't that different from "Make It" or "Mama Kin" or the general sound of Aerosmith's first album. In execution, however, there's a world of difference. The track that raises the curtain on Aerosmith's second album shows right away where all the parts go: while one guitar plays a lead riff, the other embellishes with a solo, while the rhythm section of Kramer and Hamilton keeps everything locked tight. Then Steven's vocals seem to emerge from the music, rather than get imposed on them. This is pretty much a perfect rock song, with solos from both guitarists that made it worthy of inclusion in the third Guitar Hero game.

The lyrics are technically about a crime - I'm not sure if the "narrator" committed the crime or is being wrongly accused. They're not overly clear, but they show the direction Steven's lyrics would take for the rest of his career, by suggesting the meaning of a song with largely abstract phrases ("Get yourself a cooler and lay yourself low / Coincidental murder with nothing to show") rather than telling a story in the manner of an older bluesman or a literalist pop songwriter. It's what maeks the classic Aerosmith albums so invitingly weird: you know what they're about but they're not really about it, and that was always sort of the way I wanted rock and roll to be.