Songoftheday 12/27/16 - Tell me now it's untrue what did her daddy do? He jacked a little bitty baby the man has got to be insane...

"Janie's Got A Gun" - Aerosmith
from the album Pump (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the hard blues-rock band from Boston, Aerosmith, whose decade-closing Pump album had scored them a top-5 pop hit with "Love In An Elevator" in the fall of 1989. The next single from the set would take them in a more serious route. "Janie's Got A Gun", primarily written by lead singer Steven Tyler with bassist Tom Hamilton, their party-style ways were put on the shelf as topics as child abuse and gun violence are tackled. Without being tacky, and Steven providing an impassioned and angry vocal, this may indeed be their best artistic moment, if not one of them...

"Janie's Got A Gun" reached the top-5 on the American pop chart in February of 1990. The single also went to #2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio list. Internationally, the song topped the singles chart in Australia (their first), peaked at #2 in Canada, got to the top-20 in Sweden (#12) and New Zealand (#13), but only was a minor hit in the UK at #76.

The band would earn their first Grammy Award for Rock Group/Duo Performance in 1991 for the song.

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Here's the band performing "Janie" live in concert...

Earlier this year, Tyler re-recorded the song for his country solo excursion We're All Somebody From Somewhere...

Lastly, back to the band at Woodstock '94...

Up tomorrow: Masculine measurement from the urban jazz-rockers.