- Writers: Steven Tyler and Tom Hamilton
- Producer: Jack Douglas
- Recorded: February 1975, at the Record Plant, New York City
- Released: April 1975
- Players:
Steven Tyler — vocal, keyboards, harmonica, percussion
Joe Perry — lead, rhythm, slide and acoustic guitars
Brad Whitford — rhythm guitar
Tom Hamilton — bass
Joey Kramer — drums
Jay Messina — bass marimba - Album: Toys In The Attic (Columbia, 1975)
- Also On:
Live! Bootleg (Columbia, 1978)
Greatest Hits (Columbia, 1980)
Classics Live (Columbia, 1986)
Pandora’s Box (Columbia, 1991)
A Little South Of Sanity (Geffen, 1998)
Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology (Geffen, 2001)
O, Yeah! Ultimate Aerosmith Hits (Columbia, 2002) - Steven Tyler’s angry swagger helped push “Sweet Emotion.” , as well as the Toys In The Attic album, to platinum status. The band’s first two albums went gold, as well.
- Much of the angry tone in the song was directed to guitarist Joe Perry’s then-wife.
- Tyler says of his turbulent relationship with the guitarist: “To this day, he wears a load of armor, but the music was always the saving grace. And if that’s they way he chooses to let me in, that’s fine. I just need to keep coming up with my own passwords to get in there.”
- Joe Perry explained his feelings on Aerosmith’s place in music history to Rolling Stone in 1990: “In the ’70s, I’d hear us on the radio next to the Stones and Led Zeppelin, and I didn’t think we belonged. It’s only in the last few years I’ve begun to see that we are a real part of history, a real part of the rock & roll vocabulary.”
- Bassist Tom Hamilton says of his part in the song’s inception during the recording of Toys In The Attic: “We had an extra day at the end… this one made it at the last minute. It’s still a song I’m very proud of.”
FAST FORWARD:
- After bottoming out creatively and commercially (losing Perry and guitarist Brad Whitford in the process), Aerosmith emerged refreshed, sober, and with its original lineup in 1984.
- Aerosmith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.