I’m really cutting it close with this March publication, so I’ll really try to make this worth all your while. I’ve had quite the selection of albums to choose from for this month’s review—as I’ve dived way too deep into various artists like Crosby, Stills & Nash (no Young), Christopher Cross, Ace, and Cat Stevens. I’m sure one or more of these artists will be written about in the near future, as CSN has become a top 10 album for me and Cat Steven’s “I Want To Live In A Wigwam” has been played far too many times as of late (this is me planting a seed for a future article).
But tonight, we have a different name to dive into… a far more obscene one even. And that is probably the only band named after a pleasure object: Steely Dan. I have some relatively old history with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, and it’s not from Kanye’s sampling of “Kid Charlemagne” for “Champion.” Back on a random night early in high school, my ears were blessed with the funky and jive tune of “Hey Nineteen.” I was obsessed. It was the lone Steely Dan song that wiggled its way onto my top 100 most listened to songs on my Spotify that year. I pretty distinctly remember my dad saying there was much more Steely Dan to listen to, and my ignoring that.
Fast forward a handful of years, and I’ve collected more and more of their songs and finally decided to fully embrace Steely Dan for who they are and listen to a few complete albums. Unknowingly, I started with their beginning, Can’t Buy a Thrill. Released in 1972, this is an album with some of their biggest names like “Dirty Work,” “Only A Fool Would Say That,” and “Reelin’ In The Years.” They had no idea how much college kids would love using their music in their Instagram posts. With a name like Steely Dan, I don’t get the impression that they’d really care. All of their song titles and even the name of their band give you the idea of just how much they enjoy standing out and giving you something different than anything else you’ve heard before. Fifty years later and I truly can’t think of any other band that sounds like them. Even if I hear one of their songs that’s new to me, I can pretty quickly identify them just based on the funky sound.
What really struck me about this album was how it opens with “Do It Again.” That is hands down one of my favorite Steely Dan songs. It is six minutes of instruments I can’t name, playing some ridiculously mesmerizing melodies, and this was Steely Dan’s intro to the world. Imagine being around for that.
Now I do really like this band and their sound, but what about their discography motivated an entire blog post? Well, that would have to be the incredible “Don’t Take Me Alive.” In a recent post, I talked about how “rock n’ roll” CSNY’s “Almost Cut My Hair” (and most of Déjà Vu) was. The opening 45-second guitar riff of “Don’t Take Me Alive” falls right into that same bucket of pure, gritty, and incredible music making.
I’m a bookkeeper’s son
I don’t want to shoot no one
Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon
Don’t take me alive
Donald Fagen really doesn’t hide the meaning behind this song: a runaway criminal (who definitely killed his father) who’d rather face death than live and be captured. But when they backdrop all those lyrics with this electrifying tune—how am I not supposed to also go down saying “don’t take me alive”?
This song is tucked away on Steely Dan’s best album, The Royal Scam, their fifth studio album released in 1976. I think it has some of their craziest and most experimental stuff out there. Personally, “The Fez” and “The Royal Scam” are some pretty great additions to the album. But another wacky standout for me has to be “Haitian Divorce.” I am not alone in this; it spent nine weeks on the UK Singles Chart.
Oh, congratulations
This is your Haitian divorce
Didn’t know what a Haitian divorce was before listening to this song; now I do. Who knew how much I’d be learning from the band named after a sex toy? I think that’s what makes them so cool—how much they draw out singular scenes into entire song-length stories, whether they be a rapid divorce or “The Caves Of Altamira.”
I can’t talk about this album, or Steely Dan even, without bringing up the album’s artwork choice. It was honestly so off-putting to me that I didn’t give it much of a look or even an extra thought to try to interpret it. It depicts a man sleeping on a park bench with snake-headed skyscrapers towering over him. This satirical play on the “American Dream” has also been called “the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can’t Buy A Thrill)” by Fagen and Becker themselves. At least their self aware.
After driving around Utah, hiking in the parks, and blasting Steely Dan the whole way through, I think it’s time for me to continue venturing onto the next band. I really do foresee myself settling on CSN for quite some time—I’ve really taken a liking to “In My Dreams” and “Cathedral.” For now, for you, I think it’s so important to dive into Fagen and Becker’s provocatively-named band’s work to get a taste of how strange and beautiful music can be.
Iz FM 
Leave a comment