Charts: US #21, CAN #58. CAN: Platinum; US: 2x Platinum.
The album's songs were largely written by Tyler, in contrast to later albums where other band members also contributed songs. The album's songs represent an early success in songwriting, a skill he had recently developed. He explains in a 1998 interview:
"The other guys really weren't into writing. Joe and I had written "Movin' Out," and I remember, the other guys lived in the living room, and I would wake them up in the morning and start playing the piano, because I had this thought from the night before. I wrote "One Way Street," "Make It," then "Write Me A Letter" and "Mama Kin." And I brought a song called "Dream On," which I had written three or four years before that. So, at the end of this album, I realized that something that I was trying to do for years and was not successful at I finally could do, which was write songs."
"Make It" leads off the album and also served as the band's opening song during their first tours. Tyler wrote the song on the back of a Kleenex box in the back seat of the car as the group drove down from New Hampshire to Boston to move in together to start the band. Tyler was inspired both by the sudden view of the city through the windshield and the possibilities that starting the new band presented.[8] He explains to biographer Stephen Davis, "I wrote 'Make It' in a car driving from New Hampshire to Boston. There's that hill you come to and see the skyline of Boston, and I was sitting in the backseat thinking, What would be the greatest thing to sing for an audience if we were opening up for the ... Stones? What would the lyrics say?"[9] Drummer Kramer elaborates on the song's sentiment in a 1998 interview: "You could search the ends of the earth, and I don't think you could find five more different guys. The one thing that we all had in common was that we all wanted to make it. And making it back then had nothing to do with being rich and famous. It had to do with being recognized, by your peers and people, for being a great band and being able to play concerts where a lot of people would come."
(full version: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosmith_(album))