This is the thread were you explain Steely Dan lyrics to me

I've asked this before: What is up with "Brooklyn Owes The Charmer Under Me"?? Even the title is just plain weird.
― Myonga Von Bodhisattva (M. Agony Von Bontee), Friday, November 17, 2006 12:01 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

This question never got answered, apparently. Golf is also mentioned in this song, which is confusing. Please advise.

Walter Becker: Well, the charmer was a guy who lived under Donald's apartment when we were in Brooklyn. And the song is just a bunch of things that the guy and his wife had coming to them, you know, for the indignities that they suffered living in Brooklyn, sitting on the stoop and just shooting the shit about the Mets and that kind of thing for 20 years. So, you see, the song does yield to a valid interpretation."

Ahh the old days, when you could easily tailor your display name to make it more thread-appropriate. ("Von Botany" and "Von Botulism" I particularly recall)

(xpost thanks Godzilla!)

Yeah, thanks, that explanation actually makes sense!

Chinese music under banyan trees
Here at the dude ranch above the sea

somebody plz tell me wtf this song has to do with a quiet relatio ship with a beautiful woman kthxbi

For starters, I have a theory that Gaucho is about a drug deal that gets botched because the partner's idiotic friend, and possibly lover shows up and makes a scene, and the customers balk. Do others hear it that way?

For reference

Just when I say
"Boy we can't miss
You are golden"
Then you do this
You say this guy is so cool
Snapping his fingers like a fool
One more expensive kiss-off
Who do you think I am
Lord I know you're a special friend
But you don't seem to understand
We got heavy rollers
I think you should know
Try again tomorrow

Can't you see they're laughing at me
Get rid off him
I don't care what you do at home
Would you care to explain

Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome

What I tell you
Back down the line
I'll scratch your back
You can scratch mine
No he can't sleep on the floor
What do you think I'm yelling for
I'll drop him near the freeway
Doesn't he have a home

Lord I know you're a special friend
But you refuse to understand
You're a nasty schoolboy
With no place to go
Try again tomorrow

Don't tell me he'll wait in the car
Look at you
Holding hands with the man from Rio
Would you care to explain

Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
With the studs that match your eyes
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome

I get lover from "I don't care what you do at home," "holding hands with the man from Rio," "bodacious cowboys"

I kind of picture him suddenly coming out of the bedroom right in his outlandish outfit right as the deal is going down, the song is the argument that follows.

This used to be one of my least favorite Dan songs, but I came around on it after the poll. For some reason, I've always taken it as a rebuke to Becker fucking up their career with his drug use. The bodacious cowboy lover being allegorical. Like, hey your addiction stands out so much it's like having a whole other person in the room soaking up all of the attention.

In re "dime-dancing" in Aja, reading The Quiet American now, and the Vietnamese hostesses who charge for a dance reminded me of that line, maybe something along those lines.

I want to go into My Rival too, been really digging that song lately

I've got detectives on his case
They filmed the whole charade
He's got a scar across his face
He wears a hearing aid

hilarious lyric, but not sure what it means -- I kind of get the impression that he's a boob who incorrectly thinks his wife or gf is having an affair with someone, but I feel like there are details I'm not getting

I've mentioned this on other threads, but I always imagine the rival to be Billy Joel

So does everyone accept the common explanation of "Peg" that it's about a woman about to (perhaps) star in her first adult film? Like is "foreign movie" sort of a euphemism for the kind of "classy" porno that would play in theaters in the 70s?

'dressed up in blueprint blue' certainly supports that reading

found this, kind of interesting:

Couldn't Peg be Peg Entwistle - the actress who thre herself off the Hollywood sign?
Bobb - La, Ca

Bobb in LA, I was thinking the same: the story of young starlet Peg Entwistle who threw herself off the Hollywood sign, after her big debut. The studio hated the film, and cut most of Peg's part. What is noteworthy is that -- at the time in 1932 when she commited suicide -- the sign was then not a symbol of movies, but rather of "Hollywoodland," promoting real-estate development in the hills. So the reference to "Blueprint Blue" makes sense. The pin-up shot he keeps with "your letter" is her suicide note, found in Peg's purse and published in the local newspapers. And "it will come back to you," both a reference to the karmic retribution for her sin, and the fame that would accompany her as a result of Peg's action. Of course, favorite foreign movies are known for their tragic endings -- unlike the happy "Hollywood" ones. Would WB & DF give us a clue?
Thom - L.a., Ca

that is awesome

nice. "blueprint blue" is a great turn of phrase