“Train Kept a Rollin” by Aerosmith

Aerosmith had been tearing through "Train Kept a Rollin" on stage long before they cut it for Get Your Wings, their second album, in 1974. The song goes back to Tiny Bradshaw's jump blues of 1951, and it had already been hot-rodded twice: by Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, with guitars deliberately distorted, and by the Yardbirds, whose fuzz-soaked 1965 version became the blueprint everybody copied.

Aerosmith play it in two halves, first a slower, slinkier groove, then a gear change into the Yardbirds' breakneck charge, with Joe Perry and Brad Whitford throwing guitar sparks, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer driving the rhythm and Steven Tyler yowling and blowing harp. Jack Douglas and Ray Colcord produced alongside the band. In their hands it became a hard rock standard and one of their best-loved tunes.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.