Walk This Way

Aerosmith, 1975. Solo by Joe Perry.

Squealing leads that beg to be played air-guitar style.

Joe Perry handles the lead work, with Brad Whitford on rhythm. He used a Les Paul Junior for the first solo break, then switched to a late-1950s Stratocaster for later solos, moving from the bridge pickup to the neck pickup for the long outro, with a Maestro fuzz thickening the sound. The extended solo near the end rides over the funky main riff with bluesy bends, and its squealing phrases practically demand air guitar. The mix of funk rhythm and hard rock lead gives the track its unusual, loose-limbed energy. Listen for the outro solo, where the switch to the neck pickup makes the lead rounder and warmer while the riff keeps jabbing underneath.

Walk This Way by Aerosmith is ranked #66 in our consensus of 79 guitar-solo lists. The solo is played by Joe Perry and the song was released in 1975. It appears on 9 lists, placing as high as #13 (Music in Minnesota).

The story of Walk This Way

The song started life as a guitar idea rather than a lyric. During a soundcheck in Honolulu in December 1974, Joe Perry began toying with a syncopated figure that owed a clear debt to the New Orleans funk of the Meters. He shaped the riff on the spot and then worked out the groove with drummer Joey Kramer, but for a while it remained an instrumental sketch with no words, no melody and no title attached to it.

The riff resurfaced in early 1975, when Aerosmith were at the Record Plant in New York making Toys in the Attic and needed more material. One evening the band and producer Jack Douglas went to see Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein in Times Square. They were in stitches over the gag in which Marty Feldman's hunchbacked Igor tells Gene Wilder's doctor to follow him in his own lopsided walk, and Douglas proposed the line as a title for Perry's unfinished track.

Steven Tyler's first set of lyrics never made it to the session: he left them behind in a taxi. With his bandmates suspecting he was stalling, he disappeared into a stairwell at the Record Plant with a tape player and a pencil and wrote a fresh set straight onto the wall before copying it down. The words, delivered at machine-gun speed, tell a thinly disguised story of a teenage boy's sexual initiation by an experienced cheerleader. Tyler's vocal was cut first and Perry's guitars were overdubbed afterward.

Columbia issued the song as a single in the late summer of 1975, but it made little impression at first. Once the 1976 album Rocks had raised the band's profile, the label put it out again, and this time it climbed to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 early in 1977. A decade later, Run-D.M.C.'s remake with Tyler and Perry took the tune to an entirely new audience and relaunched Aerosmith's career.

The solo

Joe Perry handles the lead work, with Brad Whitford on rhythm guitar. A Guitar World breakdown of the session identifies Perry's main rhythm part, hard-panned left, as a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Junior with a single P-90, the same guitar used for the first solo break. For the later solos he switched to a late-1950s Fender Stratocaster, using the bridge pickup and then the neck pickup for the long outro, where a Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1S thickens the sound. The amplifier was one of the Record Plant's 60-watt Ampeg V-2 heads driving a Marshall 4x12 cabinet; Perry told Guitar Player in 1979 that the studio's hot Ampegs reminded him of Fender Dual Showmans. The extended solo near the end rides over the funky main riff with bluesy bends, and Tyler often imitates it vocally on stage. Perry later said that Strat was the lost guitar he regretted most.

Legacy

Walk This Way became one of Aerosmith's defining songs and a permanent fixture of their concerts. Rolling Stone put it at No. 34 among the greatest guitar songs, Q ranked it No. 23 on its guitar-track list and VH1 placed it No. 8 among hard rock songs. Its second life arrived in 1986, when Run-D.M.C.'s version became the first hip-hop single to crack the US top five and helped establish rap rock. In 2019 both the original and the remake entered the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Top 10 facts about Walk This Way

Perry came up with the riff at a Honolulu soundcheck in December 1974 while channeling the funk feel of the Meters.
Wikipedia
The title comes from a gag in Young Frankenstein, which the band saw in Times Square with producer Jack Douglas during the album sessions.
Songfacts
After losing his first draft of lyrics in a cab, Tyler wrote replacement words on the wall of a Record Plant stairwell.
Wikipedia
The 1975 single initially failed to chart; Columbia reissued it after the success of Rocks, and it reached No. 10 in 1977.
Songfacts
Perry used a 1960 Les Paul Junior for the rhythm part and the first solo, then a 1959 Stratocaster for the later leads.
Guitar World
The outro solo was run through a Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1S into a 60-watt Ampeg V-2 head and a Marshall 4x12 cabinet.
Guitar World
Perry left most of his early Aerosmith guitars in road cases when he quit in 1979, and says the Walk This Way Strat is the one he misses most.
Guitar Player
Run-D.M.C. initially dismissed Tyler's lyrics as hillbilly gibberish before Rick Rubin talked them into the 1986 remake.
Wikipedia
Run-D.M.C.'s version reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, becoming the first hip-hop single to enter the US top five.
Wikipedia
Both the Aerosmith original and the Run-D.M.C. collaboration were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2019.
Wikipedia

Live versions

Live! Bootleg (Detroit) (1978) Recorded in Detroit on April 2, 1978, this is the classic-lineup live take on the band's 1978 double live album.
Super Bowl XXXV halftime show (2001) Aerosmith shared the stage with NSYNC, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly for a mass rendition.
62nd Annual Grammy Awards (with Run-D.M.C.) (2020) Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. reunited on the Grammy stage to perform the song together.
The Simpsons, "Flaming Moe's" (1991) An animated Aerosmith plays the song at Moe's Tavern in the episode first aired November 21, 1991.

Notable covers

Run-D.M.C. featuring Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (1986) Rick Rubin-produced remake that hit No. 4 in the US and helped launch rap rock.
Fee Waybill, Steve Lukather, Tim Bogert and Tommy Aldridge (1999) All-star version recorded for the tribute album Not the Same Old Song and Dance.
Girls Aloud and Sugababes (2007) Comic Relief charity mash-up that went to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart.

In our lists

One and Only — #6
The Road Trip 50 — #14
The 25 Greatest Hard Rock Guitar Solos — #11
The 1970s — #25
Solos in Hit Singles — #14
Played on a Les Paul — #17

Sources

Who played the guitar solo on Walk This Way?

Joe Perry played the solo on Aerosmith's Walk This Way (1975).

What guitar was used on the Walk This Way solo?

A gibson les paul, according to widely reported accounts.

Where does Walk This Way rank among the greatest guitar solos?

#66 in the GreatestSolos consensus of 79 published lists; it appears on 9 of them.

Who wrote Walk This Way?

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are the credited writers. Perry built the riff and music, and Tyler supplied the lyrics during the Toys in the Attic sessions.

What album is Walk This Way on?

It is on Aerosmith's album Toys in the Attic, released in 1975 on Columbia and produced by Jack Douglas.

What guitar did Joe Perry use on Walk This Way?

According to Guitar World, he played a 1960 Les Paul Junior for the rhythm part and first solo and a 1959 Stratocaster for the later solos, through an Ampeg V-2 amp.

Where does the title Walk This Way come from?

It comes from the walk-this-way joke in Mel Brooks' film Young Frankenstein, which the band watched with producer Jack Douglas while making the album.

What is Walk This Way about?

Behind the rapid-fire wordplay, Tyler's lyric describes a teenage boy's sexual awakening at the hands of a more experienced cheerleader.