For My Sunday Song #306, we discuss “Nobody’s Fault” by Aerosmith which is off their 1976 album ‘Rocks”. The album came out on May 14, 1976, but this song was not a single, but it was a B-Side to “Back in the Saddle”. And it did help drive sales of the album which went to #3 on the U.S. Charts and sold over 4,000,000 copies. The song was written by Brad Whitford along with Steven Tyler. “Nobody’s Fault” is one of the band’s favorite songs and might be the heaviest track they’ve ever done.
The idea behind the song came from the band’s fear of earthquakes. I mean this was mid 70’s and there were some huge earthquakes as well as a Charlton Heston movie called ‘Earthquake’. And there was even rumors of a fault line that ran through New Jersey that ran through a nuclear power plant. So, the “Fault” in the title refers to both an earthquake fault line as well as that people & governments need to prepare for earthquakes and it is their fault if they don’t.
The apocalyptic song borders on metal as it starts with an ominous sounding keyboard before a menacing riff comes in an almost Sabbathy way. Tyler’s vocals are hard and fierce with an evil undertone. Also, listen to Kramer’s drumming on this one as it is quite stellar as his fills are perfect. The doom and gloom turn out to be a beautiful track and one of the best deep cuts the band has. It sounds like nothing else on the album and yet totally amazing.

