Aerosmith- Get Your Wings

Get Your Wings is probably the most overlooked of Aerosmith's early albums. "Same Old Song and Dance" made the original Greatest Hits collection, and "Train Kept A Rollin'" has always been regarded as one of their classics, even if they didn't write it. But for me it's always been "Seasons Of Wither" that got my attention.

I remember fast forwarding to that song while driving home from a friend's house when I was 17 years old. It was this time of year too. Fall. There was a chill in the air. The skies were gray. But I found sublime pleasure in driving down those rural highways when driving was pure joy, smoking cigarettes and listening to "Seasons Of Wither."

My cassette tape sounds awful. I'll blame it on the stereo of my first car. It was known to chew up tapes on occasion, and probably didn't help with the preservation of this album. Much of the record lives in the memory banks, especially "Seasons," and it still sounds great to this day. A mellow song, but not of the sappy variety that Aerosmith would churn out in the late 80's and 90's, the song has a longing feel, and I must have felt similar as I was driving down towards town on that cloudy Fall day.

Get Your Wings is an appropriate title for Aerosmith's second record. The logo is fitting too. Not quite the grandiose Aerosmith logo we'd see on albums starting with the next one. This one is primitive. The ghoulish wings look like something from an early horror film.

Tyler finds his inner sleaze on a handful of songs, most notably "Lord Of The Thighs" and "Pandora's Box." His voice is lower and bluesier than it would be on later records. "Woman of the World" is a nice surprise, and a song I didn't really remember.

This album never got the plays from me that Toys In The Attic and Rocks did, and I can see why. It's largely the sound of Aerosmith in flight, still in ascent for the double whammy that was to follow. Still, I'll always defend Aerosmith's first four albums and this one is no exception.

I just wish my cassette tape hadn't been so degraded. I was tempted to download an MP3 album of this to really listen to it, but that would be breaking my rules. Maybe I'll find my way to that format in another 20 years when it too has been relegated to the past.