Steven Tyler, famously known as the frontman of Aerosmith, is also the father of actress Liv Tyler. Knowing this and then reflecting on the visual and lyrical elements of certain Aerosmith songs could cast Steven Tyler in a pretty creepy light. Creepier than usual, even. Here are four examples of songs and videos by Aerosmith that will make you cringe harder than the first time you saw the ending of “Oldboy.”
Walk this Way
Backstroke lover
Always hidin’ ‘neath the covers
‘Til I talked to your daddy, he say
He said, “You ain’t seen nothin’
‘Til you’re down on a muffin
Then you’re sure to be a-changin’ your ways”
Okay cool so before America’s top incest fixation of stepdaughters being stuck in dryers, you get this fun “freestyle skat” from rubber Carol Burnett puppet Steven Tyler getting oral sex advice from a dad towards the presumptive partner in the song. You remember how fun and comfortable it was when you met your girlfriend’s sex-positive parents. Yay!
Crazy
A Thelma and Louis-inspired video of a then 17-year-old Alicia Silverstone and 16-year-old Liv Tyler.
It’s Liv Tyler pole dancing in front of older dudes with panning close-ups of her ass in such a way that would only be accepted in French movies Louis CK bought from the Criterion Collection. The message seems to be “Hey do you mind if me and the guys sing to you while you want to bone my daughter?” There are just so many cringey moments in this video from the strip club to skinny dipping with a chiseled Supercuts model and it’s especially focused on Liv. If you make it to the end you’ll be wishing a firefighter would show up with one of those weighted blankets and start doing the “It’s not your fault” speech from Good Will Hunting.
Cheesecake
looser than her sister
(Cheesecake), her sugar gets me high
She knows I can’t resist her (Cheese cake)
Got my fingers in her pie (Cheese cake)
(Cheese cake), sneakin’ out the back door
(Cheese cake), rollin’ down the lawn
Everybody kissed her (Cheese cake)
At the crack of dawn (Cheese cake)
Let’s set aside the repeated use of the word “daddy” in this song and focus on the cheesecake metaphor. There were a lot of comparisons to desserts and sex in ‘70s music, but cheesecake did not come up a lot. It’s thick and dairy-forward which calls to mind a discharge that probably needs medical attention. The combined imagery of vague incest and cheese is… something. It’s as if Chuck Tingle and Ben Shapiro went into the Brundlefly machine and emerged a singular, way worse writer because of it.
Don’t Want to Miss a Thing
”Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from the blockbuster film “Armagedon” was apparently the only music video on VH1 in 1998. It features Steven Tyler and the band covered in feathers and singing on the moon looking like something that smart crows would build to scare humans away. All the while Ben Affleck is pawing Liv Tyler in montage scenes as if he’s rummaging through a box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins. This is the second time Steven Tyler did a video where he gets incest cuckolded by a dude that somehow looks like a Nissan Altima while he and the rest of his band mill around a stage like the vulture people in Dark Crystal. Pretty weird well to go back to. At least the song wasn’t written by Steven Tyler because he would have done something like “There’s Candy In My Front Pockets (There’s no Police On the Moon)”