"Back in the Saddle"

If there's one thing the best Aerosmith albums do, it's make an entrance. Get Your Wings struts into the room with "Same Old Song and Dance." Toys in the Attic touches down like a hurricane. Rocks begins with an ominous, slow-burning riff that announces its existence well in advance but can't prepare you for the shock of Steven Tyler screeching "I'M BACK!"

There's a lot going on in this song, besides the fairly clear cowboy-as-sex addict metaphor. For one, that lyrical conceit is delivered using less than obvious language, which strikes a balance between subtlety and overtness. It isn't gross but it isn't obscure. I think by this point Tyler had gotten the knack for writing and delivering dirty lyrics that achieved a form of art, bearing out the cowboy metaphor with gusto and perversity and boldness and the weird pidgin slang he always used that nobody else could ever pull off:

Come easy, go easy
All right until the rising sun
I'm calling all the shots tonight
I'm like a loaded gun
Peelin' off my boots and chaps
I'm saddle sore
Four bits gets you time in the racks
I scream for more
Fools' gold out of their mines
The girls are soaking wet
Not tounge's drier than mine
I'll come when I get back

I'm back in the saddle again

I mean what even is that? But it makes sense in that "Walk This Way" way.

I'd also like to point out that the guitars on this track - led by Joe Perry's 6-string bass - are utterly insane, very tight and funky yet loose and rocky, a perfect example of what this band is capable of pulling off. Everything is happening in this song and yet it never feels messy or even particularly chaotic, like the opening title track of Toys in the Attic. All that stuff that happens when Steven goes "I'm ridin'" is madness. This is a perfect intro to an album that is 40 minutes of redlining.