Aerosmith made a stunning comeback in the late ’80s, rising from the has-been bin to once again stake their claim as one of the world’s finest rock bands. They were so hot that even stylistic detours like the tear-in-your-beer ballad “What It Takes” delivered the goods.
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What is the song about? What ace co-writer helped to bring it to life? And how did Aerosmith pull it ever so slightly back from its country roots so that it would suit them to a tee? Here are all the details about “What It Takes,” one of the finest weepers from Boston’s bad boys.
Finding Their Footing
In the first half of the ’80s, Aerosmith appeared to be poster children for the malaise that struck a bunch of their classic rock peers at that time. When the music business changed almost overnight thanks to the influence of MTV and the second British Invasion stirred up by the New Romantics like Duran Duran, Aerosmith’s style of music fell out of fashion.
It didn’t help that the band were enduring all kinds of infighting and personal problems at that time. Their first two albums of the decade didn’t crack the Top 30 in the U.S., and individual songs from those records were non-starters on radio. Most at that time wouldn’t have predicted an Aerosmith comeback was in the offing.
But the band got focused again, received a boost from their unlikely collaboration with Run-D.M.C. on “Walk This Way,” embraced videos, and changed their sound to make it a tad more pop-friendly. Their 1987 album Permanent Vacation benefited from all that and once again returned them to the limelight. But could they follow it up?
Priming the Pump
With their 1989 album Pump, Aerosmith not only solidified their standing after Permanent Vacation, but they also improved upon it with bolder songwriting and more musical variety. “What It Takes” was prime evidence of that. Released as the album’s third single, it went to No. 9 upon its release.
Singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry wrote the song with Desmond Child, who had also co-written “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” the band’s smash hit from Permanent Vacation. Child tried to push “What It Takes” in more of a power ballad direction, but Perry wanted to steer away from that. Meanwhile, Child tried to assemble all of Tyler’s vocal improvisations into a coherent story.
On top of those machinations, “What It Takes” also briefly veered—a bit too close for comfort for the band as it turned out—into country and western territory. Perry’s swirling guitars helped to bring it back into a more familiar place for the band, while an accordion part played by special guest Bruce Fairbairn added just the right touch.
What is the Meaning of “What It Takes”?
Just like the song’s music, the lyrics to “What It Takes” form a hybrid of sorts. On the one hand, there are clear country and western idioms that appear throughout: the references to diamond rings, the bold metaphors (But your love’s made me a prisoner / Yeah my heart’s been doing time), and the overall sense that this guy’s sitting at a bar calling out to his ex from afar.
Alongside that, there’s a fierce urgency that pops up in the refrains that grounds the song. Tell me what it takes to let you go / Tell me how the pain’s supposed to go, Tyler bellows. The narrator can’t reconcile his own devastation with the carefree way the girl is handling all this: Tell me how it is you can sleep in the night / Without thinking you lost everything that was good in your life / To the toss of the dice.
“What It Takes” showed how Aerosmith could branch out their sound a bit without losing that unique combination of danger and heart that always made them so unique. With this song, they were no longer on the comeback trail. By that time, they had essentially completed that journey to once again reside at the top of the rock and roll mountain.
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