I was reading an article in Guitar Player on Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and where he wrote some of the band’s most iconic guitar riffs for their biggest songs. At one point he mentioned one of his favorite songs ever was The Yardbirds’ Stroll On, partly because its one of the few songs with both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page on it. So I went to listen to it and heard something pretty familiar.
I thought that sounded a hell of a lot like Train Kept A Rollin’:
But then I found that the Yardbirds had also covered Train because it was originally by Tiny Bradshaw and then Johnny Burnette, neither of whom I’m familiar with. But here’s The Yardbirds’ version of it.
So Aerosmith did a cover of The Yardbirds who did a cover of someone else, but did they rip off that song with their song Stroll On, and yet still do a cover of the song too? Did no one notice how similar those 2 songs sounded?
Apparently they knew it because they claim Stroll On is an updated version of Train...whatever that means: “the Yardbirds recorded an updated version with new lyrics as “Stroll On” for the film Blowup in 1966.”