On November 8, 1989, Aerosmith live debuted "Janie's Got A Gun," to a crowd of about 12,000 unsuspecting fans in Mannheim, Germany.
The Boston legends had gone 15 shows into the first leg of the "Pump" tour before unveiling "Janie," the second single from the album, an unusually serious song that would earn them their first Grammy.
Why did they hold off playing it during their October gigs in France, Italy, Belgium and Holland before rocking it out at the newly built Maimarkthalle about an hour south of Frankfort, Germany 33 years ago tonight?
The band may have been trying to spotlight the first single off the album, "Love In An Elevator" which was released in August. When "Janie" finally dropped on November 8th, the band added it to the show.
In his autobiography, Walk This Way, singer Steve Tyler explained just how dark the single is.
"That song is about a girl getting raped and pillaged by her father," Tyler, who co-wrote the tune along with bassist Tom Hamilton, revealed. "It's about incest, something that happens to a lot of kids who don't even find out about it until they find themselves trying to work through some major f--king neuroses."
To drive home the seriousness of the song, the band hired music video and film director David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room) to cinematically display the drama of a daughter killing her abusive father.
MTV awarded the group two Video Music Awards. The track peaked at #2 on the Hot 200 Billboard chart. But more notably, the song inspired Tyler to start Janie's Fund, a non-profit designed to "bring much-needed awareness to the issue of abuse and neglect of children and to generate financial support to ensure that girls receive the most effective services available to help them overcome the trauma and pain of abuse."
Janie's Fund has led to two Janie's Houses where girls can get the support they need in a safe space, literally.
Strangely, despite the success of the song, and the invaluable work Janie's Fund has wrought, Aerosmith does not play the tune live as much as many of their other hits.
"Love in an Elevator," for example, has been performed 1,160 times, whereas "Janie" clocks in at just 616 appearances. Of the group's top 20 most-performed tunes, "Janie" is down at number 19.
Fun fact: P!nk has covered it 57 times in concert. It was a staple in her 2002 "Party" tour.
Since February 2019 through today (late 2022), Aerosmith has had 66 concerts. They've played "Janie" just three times: once at the Super Bowl (2/1/19), once at a Janie's Fund Grammys viewing party (2/10/19) and once at their Vegas MGM residency (11/21/19).
So if you go to an Aerosmith show and they play this special number, feel as fortunate as those 12,000 Germans did on this day back in 1989.
