Polled At Last: STEELY DAN - ILM Artist poll #50

When the joker tried to tell me I couldn't cut it in this rube town
When he tried to hang that sign on me I said: "Take it down"

some of my favourite ever phrasing in this bit

'yes i'm cashing in this ten cent life for another one' is a line that frequently pops into my head. it's a great song, i might bump it a few spots to make my 20 if i did over.

What will be the Steely Dan Sway? IE non-hit album track that ends up placing shockingly high?
hmm, how much should i say. this poll will actually have some major surprises.

it is looking like now that this won't end until Sunday, work on Monday otherwise would go that route.

― Bee OK, Friday, April 4, 2014 11:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't say anything! Jeez you people hate surprises...and please let's not start guessing the top five/top three/etc as they are rolled out--such a buzzkill

wdyll catching up with the steely dan poll on a saturday morning in april?

http://i.imgur.com/GUHuTuk.jpg

love "only a fool would say that" so much, i like to think of it as their mission statement

would do a selfie if i was wearing the Shuffle Diplomacy tour shirt i had on earlier in the week

Three of my 10 have shown up so far (I've only been able to follow haphazardly, so I didn't realize they'd shown up until right now). All, of course, were lower than I thought they'd be. I'm sure the other seven are still to come. Because I have little sense of what Steely Dan songs are loved outside of my own favourites, I can only be sure of maybe three or four others still left; the other 15, no idea.

this is really the type of poll rollout we should have held at a slightly seedy '70s era hotel in los angeles

I've been drinking zombies at the Figueroa Hotel bar since Wednesday

I was disappointed to find out that this event actually featured two bands, not one.

Five of my top 20 ("Brooklyn," "Midnight Cruiser," "Don't Take Me Alive," "Bodhisattva," and "Haitian Divorce") have appeared already. Am pretty sure that 18 of my 20 are gonna wind up making it, and even my outliers are still possible. WHO KNOWS WITH YOU PEOPLE?

I'm very interested in what Aja tracks will make it. Also, is Babylon Sisters really not top 60?

I think most people round here consider Babylon the weakest song on the record? Could be wrong....still great tho I think

the lyrics and Santa Ana winds part are so classic

yeah I mean c'mon

babylon sisters is a sick slo jam

could rightfully win this poll

Babylon Sisters will be up there

"Babylon" and every Aja track but "I Got The News" def placing

"babylon sisters" features what is maybe my favorite drum track of all time

same

I think most people round here consider Babylon the weakest song on the record?

"Gaucho, apparently their last LP, demonstrates why they broke up: It's the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes." - Dave Marsh

has Marsh ever taken an English class

For years I just assumed Marsh was right about Gaucho, given the beigeness of its singles.

But then when I heard the rest of the record I realized how utterly wrong he was; this music would only pass for jazz in Ramada lounges.

I think most people round here consider Babylon the weakest song on the record?

no shortage of weird opinions surfacing in this poll.

― how's life, Saturday, April 5, 2014 12:41 PM

i also dig voulezvoulezvoulezvous, but I gather some ppl aren't fond

― yuoowemeone, Friday, April 4, 2014 7:04 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't like it in Lady Marmalade. Love it here.

― how's life, Friday, April 4, 2014 7:13 AM

I know! This guy doesn't like the chorus to Lady Marmalade, can you believe?

touche

Babylon Sisters has got to be pretty high on this list. Such a stone cold classic, it seems to have plenty of boosters on here. It was in contention for my #1.

& Marsh presumably loves Springsteen lyrics, which, me too sometimes, but there is nothing more earnestly scholastic than Springsteen's poetry;
shit, intro to lit editors are always trying to squeeze the Boss into their texts in the name of Relevance and Youth...

Springsteen, whom I like, has at least six lines I can quote that are embarrassing whereas Becker-Fagen's are at worst abstruse.

i love both, but comparing steely dan and springsteen is like comparing bourbon and lettuce.

Drive west on Sunset
to the sea
Strap your hands cross my engines

....it's like oil and water, really

lol

are we ready for some more songs?

xp Steely Dan and Springsteen both write song-as-movie narratives, though in completely different styles

I'm ready, if there's gas in the car

yes, there's gas in the caaaaaaaaaAAAaaar

Bee OK's got the news

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8hOvC_8iFyI/Uz9z8CPTSFI/AAAAAAAAAe0/9b-iGmc0048/w640-h320-no/Barrytown.jpg

26. Barrytown
From: Pretzel Logic
Released: February 20, 1974
556 Points, 27 Votes, 1 Number One

OK, this is so weird. I am def in some Bizzarro world of SD fandom

Nice. I posted that all of my remaining seven would place, then realized that "Barrytown" was the one I wasn't sure of.

(I wasn't the #1, though.)

you don't dig the more straight-ahead rock Dan, Iago?
(didn't vote this myself but like it a lot)

you don't dig the more straight-ahead rock Dan, Iago?
(didn't vote this myself but like it a lot)

― Swag Heathen (theStalePrince),

It's looking that way isn't it? I like the big hits that are straight rock, deep cuts less so. Anyway, I'm going to pipe down

here's one in which I hear Dylan's vocal influence

I think Christgau might have had "Barrytown" in mind when he wrote this: "And even when Donald Fagen's voice dominates as it comes out of the speakers it tends to sink into the mix in the mind's ear--recollected in tranquility, the vocals seem like the golden mean of pop ensemble singing, stripped of histrionics and displays of technique, almost...sincere, modest."

(Followed by a qualifying "Yeah, sure," but still.)

Forgot that this was one of my possible outliers. It was one of the last songs to make my cut.

this is the one from PL I voted for. Pretty straightforward but still dense, e g my last listen was the first time I really noted the pedal steel.

This one didn't click for me until I knew he was singing it to a Krishna. Perfect from then on.

I thought it was a cult specific to Barrytown?

Barrytown: A town in upstate New York, close to Annandale-on-Hudson and Bard College (Becker & Fagen's alma mater). Its biggest claim to fame would be as the headquarters of The Unification Church, a.k.a. "The Moonies", a religious cult who gained notoriety in the 70s from reports of its mass weddings & alleged brainwashing of members. As a fundraising measure, followers would often stand at street corners, carrying small bouquets of flowers for sale (hence the lyric).