Editing Walk This Way (section)

==Production==
===Music===
The song starts out with a two measure drum beat intro by [[Joey Kramer]], followed by a guitar riff composed by Joe Perry. The song proceeds with the main riff, with Perry and [[Brad Whitford]] on guitar with [[Tom Hamilton (musician)|Tom Hamilton]] on bass. The song continues with rapid fire lyrics by Steven Tyler.

In December 1974, Aerosmith opened for [[the Guess Who]] in [[Honolulu]]. During the sound check, guitarist [[Joe Perry (musician)|Joe Perry]] was "fooling around with riffs and thinking about [[the Meters]]," a group guitarist [[Jeff Beck]] had turned him on to. Loving "their riffy [[New Orleans]] [[Funk music|funk]], especially '[[Cissy Strut]]' and 'People Say'", he asked the drummer "to lay down something flat with a groove on the drums." The guitar [[riff]] to what would become "Walk This Way" just "came off [his] hands."<ref name=Myers>{{cite news|last1=Myers|first1=Marc|title=How Aerosmith Created 'Walk This Way': A look at how the hard-rock band, inspired in part by 'Young Frankenstein,' came up with a song that would become a top-10 hit twice|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-aerosmith-created-walk-this-way-1410275586|access-date=October 22, 2017|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=September 11, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150310124931/http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-aerosmith-created-walk-this-way-1410275586|archive-date=March 10, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Needing a bridge, he:{{blockquote|...played another riff and went there. But I didn't want the song to have a typical, boring 1, 4, 5 chord progression. After playing the first riff in the key of C, I shifted to E before returning to C for the verse and chorus. By the end of the sound check, I had the basics of a song.<ref name=Myers />}}

===Lyrics===
When bandmate Steven Tyler heard Perry playing that riff, he "ran out and sat behind the drums and [they] jammed." Tyler [[scat singing|scatted]] "nonsensical words initially to feel where the lyrics should go before adding them later."

When the group was halfway through recording ''[[Toys in the Attic (album)|Toys in the Attic]]'' in early 1975 at Record Plant in New York City, they found themselves stuck for material. They had written three or four songs for the album, having "to write the rest in the studio." They decided to give the song Perry had come up with in Hawaii a try, but it did not have lyrics or a title yet. Deciding to take a break from recording, band members and producer Jack Douglas went down to [[Times Square]] to see [[Mel Brooks]]' ''[[Young Frankenstein]]''. Returning to the studio, they were laughing about [[Marty Feldman]] telling [[Gene Wilder]] to follow him in the film, saying [[Walk this way (humor)|"walk this way" and limping]].<ref name="anchor.fm"/> Douglas suggested this as a title for their song.<ref name=Myers /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aeroforceone.com/index.cfm/pk/view/cd/NAA/cdid/312697/pid/302766 |title=Walk their way &#124; Aerosmith News |publisher=AeroForceOne |access-date=January 20, 2011}}</ref> But they still needed lyrics.

At the hotel that night Tyler wrote lyrics for the song, but left them in the cab on the way to the studio next morning. He says: "I must have been stoned. All the blood drained out of my face, but no one believed me. They thought I never got around to writing them." Upset, he took a cassette tape with the instrumental track the band had recorded and a portable tape player with headphones and "disappeared into the stairwell." He "grabbed a few No. 2 pencils" but forgot to take paper. He wrote the lyrics on the wall at "the Record Plant's top floor and then down a few stairs of the back stairway." After "two or three hours" he "ran downstairs for a legal pad and ran back up and copied them down."<ref name=Myers />

Perry thought the "lyrics were so great," saying that Tyler, being a drummer, "likes to use words as a percussion element." He says:
{{blockquote|The words have to tell a story, but for Steven they also have to have a bouncy feel for flow. Then he searches for words that have a double entendre, which comes out of the blues tradition.}}

Perry always liked to wait until Tyler recorded his vocal so he "could weave around his vocal attack," but Tyler wanted Perry to record first for the same reason. After a "tug-of-war", Tyler's vocal was recorded first with Perry's guitar track overdubbed.<ref name=Myers />

The lyrics, which tell the story of a high school boy losing his [[virginity]], are sung quite fast by Tyler, with heavy emphasis being placed on the rhyming lyrics (e.g., "so I took a big ''chance'' at the high school ''dance''").

Between the elaborately detailed verses, the chorus primarily consists of a repetition of "Walk this way, talk this way".

Live in concert, Tyler often has the audience, combined with members of the band, sing "talk this way". There is also a lengthy guitar solo at the end of the song, and in concert, Tyler will often use his voice to mimic the sounds of the guitar.