LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES SEPTEMBER 22, 2019- 1987 SAW AEROSMITH’S COMEBACK ALBUM ‘PERMANENT VACATION’ AND THE RELEASE OF THE SINGLE ‘DUDE (LOOKS LIKE A LADY).’
‘DUDE’ WAS A SONG THAT MARKED THE FIRST COLLABORATION WITH THE BAND AND AN OUTSIDE SONGWRITER. THIS WAS AT THE INSISTENCE OF THE BAND’S RECORD COMPANY AND AT FIRST WENT OVER LIKE A FART IN CHURCH. THE BAND DIDN’T WANT AN OUTSIDE WRITER. ACCORDING TO AN INTERVIEW WITH DESMOND CHURCH:
“They had never written with an outside writer, and they were not happy to see me. They were going along with it (to please the label), but they were not that happy about it.
Steven (Tyler) was much more friendly, as he is, and was very generous, really, and showed me a song that they had started called ‘Cruisin’ for the Ladies.’ I listened to that lyric, and I said, ‘You know what, that’s a very boring title.’ And they looked at me like, ‘How dare you?’ And then Steven volunteered, sheepishly, and said that when he first wrote the melody he was singing ‘Dude Looks like a Lady.’ It was kind of a tongue twister that sounded more like scatting. He got the idea because they had gone to a bar and had seen a girl at the end of the bar with ginormous blonde rock hair, and the girl turned around and it ended up being Vince Neil from Motley Crue. So then they started making fun of him and started saying, ‘That dude looks like a lady, dude looks like a lady, dude looks like a lady.’ So that’s how that was born. That’s the true story of how that was born. So I grabbed onto that and I said, ‘No, that’s the title of the song.'”
HERE’S THE VIDEO FOR ‘DUDE (LOOKS LIKE A LADY)’. QUICK NOTE, THAT’S JOE PERRY’S WIFE BILLIE PRETENDING TO PLAY THE SAX ONSTAGE.
