Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

quaaludes

I've often wondered, do these people even listen to the lyrics?

short answer is no

recalling the moment I explained to my prog-musician weed dealer that Everyone's Gone to the Movies was about pedophilia

I just heard Two Against Nature for the first time last week. It's terrible! I'll stan for 70s-era Dan all the way, but man. There's like two good songs: "Gaslighting Abbie" and "Cousin Dupree" but the rest was boring as fuck. Where's the jaw-dropping Denny Dias solos? Where's the hip-hoppin' future-sample drumbeats? Where's the soothing Michael McD background vocals? And why is the production so goddamn LIFELESS?!?! Should I even bother with Everything Must Go?

yeah Everything Must Go is much better – trust me.

EMG is way worth it

There's like two good songs: "Gaslighting Abbie" and "Cousin Dupree" but the rest was boring as fuck.

"jack of speed" or gtfo

Everyone's Gone to the Movies was about pedophilia

It's sort of disturbing how many SD songs are about jailbait girls and perverts. Everyone's Gone to the Movies, Janie Runaway, Hey Nineteen, Cousin Dupree ...

But yeah, Everything Must Go is great. It's impossible to find online, last I checked, but there is an EPK of them riding around in the back of a cab in Vegas while the taxi cab confessions driver interviews them about the album.

^^Uh, look upthread at the posts of August 2nd, 2014.

Oh shit! Last time I looked it was IMPOSSIBLE! Day made, thanks.

holy shit that is the best video ever

I don't like either of the reunion SD albums. I do love all of Fagen's solo albums except for Kamakiriad, though. Sunken Condos is great.

Everyone's Gone to the Movies was about pedophilia
It's sort of disturbing how many SD songs are about jailbait girls and perverts. Everyone's Gone to the Movies, Janie Runaway, Hey Nineteen, Cousin Dupree ...

But yeah, Everything Must Go is great. It's impossible to find online, last I checked, but there is an EPK of them riding around in the back of a cab in Vegas while the taxi cab confessions driver interviews them about the album.

― Josh in Chicago

You should read Thomas Pynchon, similar thing

I've often wondered, do these people even listen to the lyrics? Do they know anything about the musicianship? Or are they just there to boogie.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 9:25 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair, if steely dan weren't boogie-able then they wouldn't be half the band they are.

i mean, if they were just potheads with jazz chops and a taste for obscurantist lyrics...

for real. what i love about SD is that they function fine as a pop band with a ton of great singles if that's what you want from them, i think playing up the darkness/satire sometimes does a disservice to the entirety of their virtues.

you know when you think about it, lyrically their sensibility might be closest to someone like el-p.

Wow, both those LAW articles kind of suck.

ftfy

did LAW ever not suck? i don't remember. i feel like back in 2000 it wasn't terrible. it's just shit now though.

is the narrator in Hey Nineteen really a "pervert"?

a thirty year old going out with a nineteen year old! (grabs smelling salts).

he isnt even going out with them tho iirc

calling that "perverted" demonstrates a really straitened sense of morality or just normalcy

isnt he like, a dude who used to go out with young girls back when he was young reminiscing about that time?

Let us tell you: Listening to the Dan is akin to reading novel. You need a liberal arts degree to get it. Trust me, kids, it's not that you don't like Steely Dan, it's that you don't get it. It requires some formal humanities training to truly grasp the brilliance of a mellotron solo in the middle of a song about nuclear genocide. The lyrical nuances of a song like "Everyone's Gone To The Movies" are easily lost when you haven't spent four years critically analyzing texts. Yep, Katy Lied is a lot closer to Ulysses than Exile On Main Street.

alt weeklies need to die eh

oh wait i forgot the retha franklin part

i sense the guy is trying to talk to a 19yr old and she's not at all interested or on the same wavelength and the guy ends up alone at the end of the song with cocaine and tequila

nothing wrong with that

he ends up with a curvy colombian iirc

the song is great bc it's not tragic or perverse, it's wistful and a bit decadent

"my heigl/lohan girl" would be a great line for present-day dan

he ends up with a curvy colombian iirc

lol otm, I always think this too

i sense the guy is trying to talk to a 19yr old and she's not at all interested or on the same wavelength and the guy ends up alone at the end of the song with cocaine and tequila

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little),

the LA Weekly writer, right?

Hey Nineteen obviously isn't about pedophilia, fwiw, and I'm not sure Cousin Dupree is either, since it suggests they're the same age ("Well we used to play when we were three")

And if you want to get technical/DSM, neither is Janie Runway unless Janie is supposed to be 11 or younger, which I don't think she is.

xxp i was thinking heigl/lohan just now as well

or I guess 13 or younger.

oh I guess JIC just said "jailbait girls and perverts."

Hey Nineteen obviously isn't about pedophilia, fwiw, and I'm not sure Cousin Dupree is either, since it suggests they're the same age ("Well we used to play when we were three")

― man alive, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 4:04 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"everyone's gone to the movies" on the other hand...

cuervo spanish for "curvy" everybody knows that.

All Steely Dan songs are first person non-fiction accounts. Donald Fagen died in a shootout in 1976, shouting "I'm a bookkeeper's son!" as police bullets tore through his body.

still think our Steedy Dan artist poll was one of the very best ones done on this here board.

yeah, great fun

kids got pez dispensers for christmas so I've had that song in my head, you know the one

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7013/6425292913_ec9bb8c99e.jpg

(Kid Charlemagne, obvs.)

i sense the guy is trying to talk to a 19yr old and she's not at all interested or on the same wavelength and the guy ends up alone at the end of the song with cocaine and tequila

It's ambiguous as to whether the last line implies that he ends up alone with cocaine and tequila or whether he overcame her indifference with cocaine and tequila.

They are obviously already in a relationship (I don't give it long).

While they can't dance together and have nothing to talk about, weed* & tequilla will nevertheless make tonight a wonderful thing.

(*In early 1980s Southern California, every time I heard anyone say "Columbian" they meant high-priced weed, but that could reflect my low-class un-rock-star teenage environs - obviously Columbian could mean coke, that might even be the default reading in a Steely Dan number. But automatically reading Steely Dan songs as autobiographical is not recommended.)

I think "Columbian" referred to weed back then. (or is that "reeferred, huh, huh)

Colombian

My dad told me it was Colombian coffee when I was seven. Ahhhhh parenting...

My mom told me "shake your booty" meant shake your foot, and then proceeded to demonstrate. I was like five though

Anyone ever read the Brian Sweet book? Despite some poor editing ("Ozzie" Osbourne; "Through the Buzz," etc), definitely worth a read if you're a fan. Always assumed Fagan was the frostier of the two, but oh no. Becker makes Fagan look like Wayne Coyne

Best band ever