Walk Their Way Analysis

Walk Their Way
It may be surprising to learn that the first rap song to bring the genre to a wide mainstream audience wasn’t even originally a rap song. By every definition, “Walk This Way”, written in 1975 by Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, was a classic rock song, with air-guitar-worthy riffs and cocky, brash, vocal delivery of thinly veiled, extremely sexual lyrics, it was the track that should have set Aerosmith on the road to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame (Run-DMC and Aerosmith, 2007). Moreover, these Rock Kings of the early 70s fell on hard times, not able to produce another hit until a decade later, when Def Jam Recordings co-founder and producer Rick Rubin, a 22-year-old white kid from New York University, came calling with

By 1985 Run-DMC was fast becoming America’s most popular and influential rappers, however, “It was impossible to get [Run-DMC] played on pop radio. Not hard – not even in the realm of possibility” stated Cory Robbins, co-founder of Profile Records (Edgers, 2016). Rick Rubin, producer of Run-DMC’s third album, Raising Hell, having an idea he hoped would change that, gave Run, DMC and Jam Master Jay, the original Aerosmith “Walk This Way” record. DMC recalls hearing ‘Backstroke lover always hidin’ ‘neath the covers’ and ‘hey diddle-diddle with the kitty in the middle’ and immediately call Rick hollering, “Hell no, this is hillbilly gibberish, country-bumpkin bullshit” (Tyler and Perry, 1976) (Wiederhorn, 2016). Eventually Steven Tyler would candidly explain the lyrics, “‘Backstroke Lover’ is our hero masturbating. His father catches him and explains that he will someday experience the real thing. One day, he encounters the cheerleader along with ‘her sister and her cousin,’ and has a glorious sexual experience” (Aerosmith, 1999) (Tyler and Perry, 1976). “Hillbilly gibberish” aside, Rubin’s persistence came to fruition on Sunday, March 9th, 1986, when Tyler, Perry, Run, DMC and Jam Master Jay crowded into Def Jam’s recording studio, neither group aware of the monumental, multidimensional effect

Until the day in early 1986 when Aerosmith manager Tim Collins answered a call from Rick Rubin, who wanted to discuss the idea of remaking his charges’ single “Walk This Way” with the rising rap group, Run-DMC. Collins cut him off to request a little clarification: “What’s rap?” (Price, 2016). “To people who were not already fans of [rap music], the gap [between hip-hop and rock] was so far that not only did they not understand it, but they did not understand it to be music,” Rubin told the Washington Post (Wiederhorn, 2016). Collins relayed Rubin’s offer to Tyler and Perry, who were slightly skeptical, agreed to lay down vocals and guitar, also to appear in the music video, which would be their first. The Run-DMC cover launched Aerosmith’s comeback. After successfully completing drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, Aerosmith released their ninth album, Permanent Vacation, the band’s most successful release in more than a decade, selling 5 million copies in the US alone (Wiederhorn,