Top 10 Interesting Facts About Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

The song Dude (Looks Like a Lady) was released in 1987 on the album Permanent Vacation.
The Top Ten
1 Steven Tyler got the idea at a bar where he saw a girl with ginormous blonde rock hair but when the girl turned around it ended up being Vince Neil from Mötley Crüe. So then they started making fun of him and started saying 'That dude looks like a lady!

In his book 'The Heroin Diaries', Mötley Crüe's bassist Nikki Sixx also claims that the song was specifically inspired by their lead singer Vince Neil.
But Vince Neil says different things - in an interview for Swedish television he said the title of the song originated from a New York bar crawl where Tyler and Neil had drinks at a bar where the waiters were dressed in women's clothes. This, according to Neil, prompted Tyler to comment, "Dude looks like a lady! "

2 Dude (Looks Like a Lady) was Aerosmith's comeback single written with the help of the professional songwriter and hit master Desmond Child

Aerosmith's last hit before this single of 1987 was a 1978 remake of the Beatles' "Come Together"... Between 1978 and 1987 they had years of poorly selling records (and drug addiction).

3 An executive at Aerosmith's label A&R (John Kalodner) convinced the band to write a song with Desmond Child but initially Aerosmith weren't happy with the idea to work with an outside writer

Desmond Child said in 2012,
"They had never written with an outside writer, and they were not happy to see me. They were going along with it to please John Kalodner, but they were not that happy about it."

4 Dude (Looks Like a Lady) was prominently featured in the 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire
5 Originally it was called "Cruisin' for a Lady" but Desmond Child convinced them to change it

Desmond Child told this story:
"Steven (Tyler) was much more friendly [than the other band members], as he is, and was very generous, really, and showed me a song that they had started, called 'Cruisin' for the Ladies.' I listened to that lyric, and I said, 'You know what, that's a very boring title.' And they looked at me like, 'How dare you? '
And then Steven volunteered, sheepishly, and said that when he first wrote the melody he was singing 'Dude Looks like a Lady.' It was kind of a tongue twister that sounded more like scatting. So I grabbed onto that and I said, 'No, that's the title of the song.'

6 A&R executive John Kalodner insisted on Desmond Child's participation because Child had already written Bon Jovi's massive hits "Livin' On A Prayer", "You Give Love A Bad Name"

After the success of Dude (Looks Like a Lady), Aerosmith were happy to work with Desmond Child again, resulting in Crazy (Grammy winner), Angel, Hole In My Soul, What It Takes, and several more songs.

7 The mentioned A&R executive John Kalodner had a cameo appearance in the music video dressed up in a wedding dress. It was a joke based on the fact that Kalodner always dresses in white
8 The song picked up two MTV Video Music Award nominations in 1988 (the first for the band) - for Best Group Video and Best Stage Performance, but failed to win.
9 Joe Perry's wife Billie appears in the music video, pretending to play the saxophone on stage.

Joe Perry is the Aerosmith guitarist

10 Mrs. Doubtfire's screenwriter, Randi Mayem Singer, credits Dude (Looks Like a Lady) as the direct influence for writing the script. She was quoted as saying "Without ['Dude...' ] there would be no Mrs. Doubtfire".

And the scene with this song was very funny

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