What It Takes

Tyler, Perry and Desmond Child wrote it, and it came out in February 1990 as the third single from Pump. Child had co-written the ballad Angel on the previous album, but the band wanted this one to carry its own identity. Perry said it started out sounding country-western and that Bruce Fairbairn's accordion made the difference. The lyric is about getting over a past relationship and refers to two earlier Aerosmith songs, F.I.N.E.* and Heart's Done Time.

It was the band's second number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart and finished 1990 as that chart's most successful single. Two videos exist. Wayne Isham directed one of the band in a brawl at the Longhorn Ballroom, and Keith Garde and Martin Torgoff made another from scenes in The Making of Pump, which got more airplay.