Pandora's Box

Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer wrote the melody for this song in 1973 when the band was living in a farmhouse in East Thetford, Vermont. Lead singer Steven Tyler added the lyrics. Kramer said in the book Walk This Way: "Steven wrote the lines about women's liberation, a big new issue in those times, and we used it to close Get Your Wings, a huge thrill for me, the first thing I'd ever written.

Pandora was a figure from Greek mythology. The first woman created by the gods, she was given a jar containing all the evils of the world, and told not to open it. Curious, she opened it, and out came all the bad things in the world. A "Pandora's Box" is now a phrase used to describe something that could cause major problems if disturbed or pursued.

In Steven Tyler's lyrics, Pandora is a girl he can't resist: the title "Pandora's Box" (a phrase that doesn't show up in the lyrics) plays to the myth and also to the sexual imagery, as "Box" is slang for "Vagina." Tyler gets rather graphic near the end of the song, when he mentions a "slitty licker."

Get Your Wings was Aerosmith's second album. Recorded at The Record Plant in New York City, it was their first with producer Jack Douglas, who tried to refine the band's sound in the studio while retaining their live energy. The added horns to this track, bringing in Stan Bronstein and Michael Brecker to play saxophones.