Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler Said 1 Beatles Song Showed the Band’s Growth

Many different Beatles songs have been cited as the moment when they “grew up.” Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler said that a track from Rubber Soul showcased how much the Fab Four changed in a short period of time. The track in question paved the way for an Aerosmith song.

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler liked when The Beatles took a musical trip to India

In his 2011 book Does the Music in My Head Bother You?: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir , Tyler discussed why The Beatles blew up. “They were English and they had long hair when nobody else did and they said funny things, but it wasn’t that, either,” he said. “It was the alchemy they cooked up — Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Chuck Berry — and music hall numbers .” In other words, Tyler is saying that The Beatles were popular because they drew from an eclectic range of influences.

“Many groups came out, had a hit, and then took the ferry back across the Mersey,” Tyler wrote. “The Beatles went from ‘She Loves You’ to ‘Help!’ within a year. In one year. Not 10. In two years they were at the trippy Rubber Soul . ‘Norwegian Wood,’ how great is that?” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” has often been cited as one of The Beatles’ most experimental tracks because they combined elements of Indian classical music with Western pop. The fusion led to a genre called raga rock that was popular in the 1960s.

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Tyler ruminated more on the Fab Four. “So you can say what you want, but in one year they started out recording in a room where Paul and John sang together on one mic, took that vocal and dumped it down to one track, and added it to the next vocals,” he wrote. “You know what that means? It means you can’t go back. They had to be so sure of themselves. Plus, of course, they had George Martin as a producer.”

Tyler’s connections to The Beatles extended beyond some stray comments in his memoir. The singer appeared in the film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , a bizarre adaptation of the album of the same name. Aerosmith performed “Come Together” in the film. Aerosmith’s “Come Together” is probably the most famous cover of the song as well as one of the most famous Beatles covers ever.

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John Lennon didn’t think about the song too hard

Interestingly, John Lennon didn’t take “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” as seriously as Tyler did. The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, a journalist recalls seeing a fan talk to John about the harmonic passages of the song. Afterward, John told the journalist that he didn’t even understand what a harmonic was. Apparently, he wasn’t thinking about the track’s musicality in such technical terms.

Nevertheless, the raga rock of “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” impacted Aerosmith. They delved into raga rock with their forgotten 1990s track “Taste of India.” Aerosmith tipped their hats to India with the song’s parent album Nine Lives , whose cover was inspired by portrayals of the Hindu god Krishna.

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” is a classic ballad and you can hear its influence in Aerosmith’s music.