"Dude Looks Like a Lady"

Do bear in mind that this is apparently a song about meeting, being seduced by, and perhaps ultimately enjoying sex with a male transvestite.* Although Aerosmith was sometimes dark and sometimes thoughtful in the 70's (I swear!) they never really presented themselves as a serious band. They concerned themselves with finding all these odd corners to play in, and their 80s comeback era really accentuated that image of them. The success of that comeback hinged on creating a narrative about who and what Aerosmith was, then fitting the music to that and selling it to people. It may seem overly cute and cuddly, but it's still really outsider stuff, (Steven was a huge disciple of the Kinks, after all,) especially if we're to judge from the way Steven orgasmically screams the title phrase. Bon Jovi and Motley Crue were not doing this. (At least not admitting to it.)

So let's unpack the construction of this song, the tune that was designed and picked to cement the intended comeback. Permanent Vacation is everything Done With Mirrors wasn't. That was a sober, almost joyless affair, and this one is loud and splashy and powered by hooks. The opening to "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" is one of the most distinctive hooks for any rock single for that era, using a staccato sample in either speaker to call and respond, and do something that was kind of verboten in 1980s rock: to put groove ahead of technique or power. And that was the chief weapon in Aerosmith's armory, that sense of groove, of soul and beat honed in the 60's. That solo that Joe Perry unleashes at 2:20 is fleet-fingered and intuitive and twangy, and really far removed from anything in rock in the 1980's, aside from being turned up to 11.

Helping the song along are those horns, which producer Bruce Fairbairn infused into the three albums he produced for these guys, and while they overwhelm a lot of the album tracks, are usually pretty deftly deployed in the hits. And that's what this is: a designated hit. It has a title phrase that can jsut be screamed over and over again in a variety of ways, building and building. In the end it doesn't matter that it's, lyrically, a really fucking weird song to come out of the box with, it's fun.

*I know the song was inspired by the gender-bending bands of the era, with their makeup and huge hair, but being "inspired by" something and being "about" something are two different matters.