I woke up singing this song in my head this morning, Christ knows what manner of Bangkok shocks I’d been dreaming of. Ah, well, whatever, never mind.
Like a lot of European chaps Dude (Looks Like A Lady) was the first Aerosmith song I ever heard, I remember Paul Gambaccini playing it on his American chart show in 1987 and I perked up, it was just a slice of great catchy pop, it never occurred to me that this was some sort of hard rock band. I thought it was funny and I decided to check out this Arrow Smith person the first chance I got.
Flash forwards to 28 February 1990 and I went to Leeds University for an open day, I ended up there but can’t remember much else about it apart from buying Thunder Dirty Love and Aerosmith Dude (Looks Like A Lady) both on shaped picture disc* – so THIS was the point of big cities!
The picture disc plays a bit quiet, but hey I can stand to turn the volume up a notch and anyway shaped picture discs are 35% cooler than regular round picture discs, which in turn are 28.53% cooler than regular records**.
You all, we all, know this tune and I am very happy to say it still stands as a perfect slice of 80’s pop for me, catchy as hell, funny and Mrs 1537 and I still use it as a catchphrase occasionally. The Toxic Twins may have sold their souls to the De(s)mon(d) Child^ but, quite frankly they got back more than they gave up.
The flip on the 1990 version isn’t ‘Simoriah’^^ as it was in ’87, but the Pump track ‘Monkey On My Back’. True story, naïve chap that I was, I had no idea this was a reference to addiction at the time I genuinely thought it was the story of Mr Arrow Smith being attacked by a simian. An eccentric choice of subject matter, I thought at the time.
As a song ‘Monkey …’ doesn’t do much for me, although I do think it ends better than it started and middle-d the last 30+ seconds are great.
Fun times, fun track. Thank you subconscious!
1071 Down.
*Thunder had supported Aerosmith when I saw them the previous November. Mr Arrow Smith had re-released Dude (Looks Like A Lady) in 1990, to cash in on the success of Pump.
**according to figures released last month from CERN. What? you thought they were doing all that particle shit in there? nah, it’s just a front. Those Swiss science dudes spend all their time getting wrecked and cranking up 80’s rock before haring around Meyrin in their souped-up muscle cars. True story.
^see what I did there?!
^^which I still think sounds like a particularly virulent venereal disease.