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

The list I put together a few years ago.

A tape of the "lost" song "Second Arrangement" (from the Gaucho sessions) has been found.

I WANT I WANT I WANT

For a few years there I was hoping that Don & Walt would pull a Van Halen and fabricate a new record from fully-realized recreations of 70s demos. Most hardcore fans of bands apparently don’t want things like this (see “Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE.”) But I did.

I'm obsessed with Kings right now. This is definitely getting played when you-know-who moves on.

Always wondered if that song was a Nixon-Kennedy allegory

i was first getting into steely dan when the big poll ran. i missed it. :( i suppose i'll be here again when the 20th anniversary of the ILM poll comes up

Which probably wouldn’t make sense since King Richard of America came after King John. But the 1972 release date makes you wonder. That’s early Watergate territory - was anyone prescient enough then to see the writing on the wall?

Give us your list dude!

can’t believe they found second arrangement, praise be

I don’t get it. They erased it but there were prior copies? The engineer brought them home but didn’t tell Fagen he had those backups?

It's a take home reference mix on a C-90, so obviously not up to the Dan's exacting audio standards.

yeah, in that case I don't get the fuss, either. How much better is this likely to sound than the rough mix that has been circulating on bootlegs for decades?

The c90 would be the original performance and rough mix, not the complete recreation of the performance from scratch post-erasure, which is the version we all know.

I have identified the 10 best Steely Dan songs. You're welcome.

hard to argue with any of those inclusions!

and holy cow, i didn't know about the Jarrett lift for "Gaucho." the original track is super lovely, i'm gonna seek out that LP.

also, i like the point about how few of their protags are people i'm straightforwardly rooting for - though i'd say that Kid Charlemagne has a kind of doomed underdog quality, the world's changed out from under him, and while the Dan are sneering at the earlier sense that the good times would never end, it's not clear that they're siding with the formerly-hip or the cops.

a thing i really like in their songs is this blend of unsentimental recognition of failings and pretensions, laid out brutally in the lyrics, with a measure of empathy that i think actually comes through more in the arrangements and performance somehow.

Agreed, great list.

i haven't actually heard gaucho though i was obsessed with aja for a while when i lived in l.a., so those two gaucho tracks have a sound i associate with a very specific, happy time of my life - riding down sunset on the bus at twilight, trudging manically drunk down long, foggy, empty l.a. sidewalks, etc. i thought "gaucho" the song was going to be relatable since it's from a gay pov but those kinds of rich daddy stories just dispirit me tbh. gorgeous song though. i should really get copies of gaucho and aja. never cared as much for the shaggier stuff tbh. i don't really know why i stopped going with steely dan, other than i wasn't getting as much out of their social universe as i used to when i first discovered them, when it was like going to a fancy college and having intelligent, sophisticated friends for the first time.

those kinds of rich daddy stories just dispirit me tbh

It's one of their saddest songs, really.

yeah, like, that poor kid. sad lol

My reading of it is Donald's breakup song to Walter for his junk habit and the colorful characters that accompany such a habit.

haha. if i hear any 70s song with a gay pov i inevitably imagine it's david geffen.

Steely Dan were probably the first band where I collected all their records (that existed at the time). This is a worthy list, but I've always absolutely hated Gaucho the song from the moment I heard it (I don't like the Jarrett song either). It's complete self-parody to me, and the one song where they actually tip the balance into the mid-afternoon 70s talk show themes that haters accused them of. The lyrics are nothing special and the scenario doesn't inspire me either.

My actual favourite song might be Boston Rag. Best song of the reunion years is Lunch with Gina.

I'm entitled to be smug about my affection for Gaucho on this message board.

Also, "Gaucho" and "Third World Man" often tie for favorite Dan ballad. Terrific blurb, Phil.

i karaoke-d "deacon blues" at a downtown la bar one night, it was still early and 80% empty though i was drunk already, and afterward the guy running the party came up to me and said "that was .. really sad." haha.

xp alfred i remember reading some very interesting things you wrote about the album on here or on your blog, way back when.

Steely Dan’s album Gaucho turned 40 over the weekend, which means it’s time for Gaucho to get really into Steely Dan

— Clue Heywood (@ClueHeywood) November 24, 2020

I'd never heard that Jarrett track, and uh yeah, I'm glad he got credit.

sadly and predictably, if you look that track up on youtube, 2/3 of the comments are dudes arguing that they sound nothing alike and that Steely Dan were ripped off

they totally sound alike wtf

belonging is an amazing record front-to-back, great ecm gateway

but the Becker and Fagen of 2000’s Grammy-winning Two Against Nature and 2003’s Everything Must Go had developed a smirky, Sparks-ish self-awareness, and the music had become as boring as the duo’s detractors had always accused the earlier records of being.

gah so otm. i really tried with these, but all it ever did was make me rush right back to the OG run. and sometimes Nightfly

Great write-up, thanks!

I'd also never realized Michael McDonald did guest vocals on "Peg," which, wow.

oh man you have GOTTA watch the Classic Albums doc on Aja, it's worth it for the knob-twiddling scene on those backing vocals alone. I almost can't hear the song without hearing those blurts of "All in 3D! For-eign moo-vee!"

agreed. that and Bernard Purdie putting on a clinic

i really tried with these, but all it ever did was make me rush right back to the OG run. and sometimes Nightfly

I actually like 3 out of 4 Fagen solo albums (only Kamakiriad sucks), so it pains me that 2000s SD was so weak.

kamakiriad is great cf. "springtime," "snowbound," "on the dunes." morph the cat is the lesser fagen solo record

Sunken Condos is really good

I like 2AN though

oh yeah the Purdie stuff is incredible. also them digging into the mix of whatever song and discovering weird shit they didn't use. "is that a celeste?" "oh now here's a different solo, do you remember this?" etc.

I think I remember liking the lead off single from 2AN, but there didn’t seem to be much to sink my teeth into on 00s Dan

i find two against nature too mannered and averse to hooks at points but as i've certainly already said on this thread and others, "jack of speed" and "west of hollywood" are primo dan

everything must go is a chill record with solid songs, curiously worse than every fagen solo record barring morph, but i still like it a lot

Both Becker solo albums are better than any of the Fagen albums, although possibly none of Becker's songs are as good as New Frontier, and none of Fagen's are as bad as Cringemaker. Becker's voice was criticized by some, but I can't imagine anyone singing these songs with more nuance and depth.

yeah, no. Everything Must Go >>>>>>>>>>>> Two Against Nature.

"Jack of Speed" was the only latter-day SD song I even considered.

xp alfred i remember reading some very interesting things you wrote about the album on here or on your blog, way back when.

― fleet doxes (map)

aw, thanks! Maybe here?.

(only Kamakiriad sucks)

Both Becker solo albums are better than any of the Fagen albums

so, so very wrong

yeah i love the becker solo records and i can't get down with that