Joe Perry of Aerosmith was asked to name his favorite Beatles song and he picked a classic track from The White Album. The tune in question doesn’t sound much like Aerosmith’s hits, but it was innovative nonetheless. Perry also revealed what he thought when he heard that one of The Beatles had died.
Aerosmith’s Joe Perry loved a fusion song from The Beatles’ ‘The White Album’
During a 2009 interview with Cleveland.com, Perry named his favorite Beatles song: “Tomorrow Never Knows,” from The White Album. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is one of the most famous examples of raga rock, a genre fusing Indian classical music with Western rock ‘n’ roll. While “Tomorrow Never Knows” is distinct from Aerosmith’s hits, Aerosmith did experiment with raga rock on their album Nine Lives.
Perry explained why the Fab Four are so important. “The Beatles did everything long before anyone else,” he opined. “They weren’t afraid to try things and to experiment with a lot of sounds. In 200 years, when you look up ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ in the dictionary, it’ll have a picture of The Beatles next to it.”
Joe Perry was impressed that John Lennon wasn’t content to live off Beatles song
In his 2014 book Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith, Perry recalled learning of John Lennon’s death in 1980. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to react,” he said. “I had met him briefly at the Record Plant, but I never knew the man.” For context, the Record Plant is a famous recording studio. Aerosmith recorded their early albums Get Your Wings and Toys in the Attic at the Record Plant.
“Without him and his Beatles, I wouldn’t have been doing what I was doing,” Perry wrote. “I saw him as a searcher, a brave artist. He could have lived off those Beatles songs for the rest of his life, but at the end of his life he was still making daring and important music. He had written some of the best pop songs of all time, yet he was a true rock ‘n’ roller. John was, is, and always will be, one of my great inspirations.”
Aerosmith made 2 classic covers of Fab Four songs
The connections between The Beatles and Aerosmith go beyond Perry’s words. Aerosmith appeared in the ill-fated Fab Four jukebox musical Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the film, they perform a cover of “Come Together.” That recording became the most famous version of the song besides the original, as well as one of the most famous of the many, many Beatles cover songs.
Aerosmith also recorded a lesser-known cover of a lesser-known Beatles song. “I’m Down” served as the B-side of “Help!” Perry and company put their spin on the tune for the record Permanent Vacation. The fact that Aerosmith was able to take these songs and comfortably reinterpret them in a hard-rock style shows that the Fab Four’s songs have a wonderful elasticity.
Perry loves “Tomorrow Never Knows” and he wouldn’t be the same without The Beatles.
