SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

[NOTE: The Steely Dan 64 Project represents my ranking, in order of my personal preference, of the 64 songs released by Steely Dan during their “classic” period (1972-80). These links will connect you to a detailed introduction to the project, as well as notes on the songs I’ve numbered 64 through 57; songs 56 through 49; songs 48 through 41; songs 40 through 33; songs 32 through 25; songs 24 through 17; songs 16 through 13; songs 12 through 9; songs 8 and 7; songs 6 and 5; song 4; song 3; and song 2.]

1. Kid Charlemagne (The Royal Scam)
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you are

We’ve counted upward through 64 classic tracks to reach the pinnacle of the Steely Dan catalog. As I’ve said throughout this project, not a single one of these 64 songs sucks. Half or more of them stand among the finest recordings made during the rock era. Any of the final seven or eight that we’ve covered in this ranking could easily merit consideration as Number One. Indeed, among the seemingly infinite iterations of this list that I devised on my path to this point, each of the top seven landed in first place at least once.

So why did “Kid Charlemagne” end up on top?

My glib response: “Two words — Larry Carlton.”

But there’s so much more to it than just that.

“Kid Charlemagne” is, as is generally well known by this late date, based on the activities of a guy named Augustus Owsley Stanley III, nicknamed “The Bear,” who worked as a sound technician for rock bands (most notably, the Grateful Dead) in the 1960s and early 1970s. When not designing and maintaining high-powered audio systems (and, according to legend, co-creating the Dead’s now-familiar skull-and-lightning-bolt logo), Stanley was in his bathroom laboratory cooking up high-powered LSD. He quickly gained renown as a purveyor of quality acid, becoming the preferred provider of same to musicians and other celebrities in the psychedelic scene.

I don’t know whether Donald Fagen and Walter Becker knew Stanley personally, or merely by reputation, but they used his career — specifically, the raid in 1967 that led to Stanley’s two-year imprisonment — as the inspiration for “Kid Charlemagne.” (They weren’t the first, incidentally. The Grateful Dead songs “Alice D. Millionaire” and “Truckin’,” Frank Zappa’s “Who Needs the Peace Corps?,” and Jefferson Airplane’s “Mexico” either allude to or specifically mention Stanley; all four predate “Kid Charlemagne” by several years.)

The narrative of a drug kingpin riding high until it all goes sideways provokes some of Becker and Fagen’s most memorable lyrics:

Did you feel like Jesus? Did you realize that you were a champion in their eyes?

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene, but yours was kitchen clean / Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home

And of course, perhaps the most quotable Steely Dan couplet of all:

Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car…

It’s stunning storytelling, even from two scribes supremely skilled in weaving wicked tales.

But then, we have to talk about the music. Which means that, yes, we have to talk about Larry Carlton.

Can I say that Carlton’s incredible guitar solo is the greatest guitar solo in the history of recorded rock? I probably wouldn’t go that far — although I’m struggling to come up with all that many better candidates. There is, however, an undeniable genius to Carlton’s effort; a constantly shifting fusillade of jazz chords and progressions that somehow fits perfectly within the context of a rock song — a straight-ahead pop-rocker propelled by a funky, almost quasi-disco undercurrent. And yet, Carlton brings the full weight of his prodigious fusion chops to his solo without it feeling out of place for so much as a single note.

I listened to Carlton’s playing on “Kid Charlemagne” a couple dozen times while preparing to write this essay. Thanks to YouTube, I was even able to listen to it in isolation from the rest of the track. I never got bored of hearing it; with every pass, I heard some nuance or technique that I’d never picked up on before. For example, did you ever notice that Carlton plays the last few notes of his solo by tapping the strings on his guitar’s fretboard, the style that Eddie Van Halen would make famous years later? Sheer brilliance.

Equally brilliant is the way the other musicians line up to support what Carlton is doing. In particular, the rhythm section of Chuck Rainey (bass) and Bernard Purdie (drums) digs into the groove so snugly that you couldn’t pry them out with a crowbar. The electric keyboards — a collaborative effort involving Fagen on organ, Don Grolnick on the Fender Rhodes, and Paul Griffin on clavinet — alternately push forward and swirl underneath, but never get in the way. And Fagen, with stellar support from his cast of backing singers, delivers one of his most gleefully sardonic vocal performances ever.

The result is a quintessentially Steely Dan track that isn’t stereotypical Steely Dan, if that makes sense. “Kid Charlemagne” forms, I believe, the nexus between what Becker and Fagen had been doing from the very beginning — this song fits just fine alongside early Dan numbers like “Reelin’ in the Years” — and what the Dan would morph into from this point forward. It’s an ideal blend of the Dan’s past and its upcoming.

Plus a metric boatload of Larry Carlton.

That’s why “Kid Charlemagne” wins the grand prize trophy for me.

So, that’s it, then. Sixty-four amazing songs, ranked as I hear and feel them. How did your own ranking — I presume you were (at least mentally) doing your own, for the sake of comparison — turn out? What was your #1 in the Steely Dan 64?

[NOTE: The Steely Dan 64 Project represents my ranking, in order of my personal preference, of the 64 songs released by Steely Dan during their “classic” period (1972-80). These links will connect you to a detailed introduction to the project, as well as notes on the songs I’ve numbered 64 through 57; songs 56 through 49; songs 48 through 41; songs 40 through 33; songs 32 through 25; songs 24 through 17; songs 16 through 13; songs 12 through 9; songs 8 and 7; songs 6 and 5; song 4; and song 3.]

2. Deacon Blues (Aja)
You call me a fool
You say it’s a crazy scheme
This one’s for real
I already bought the dream

If music can be described as “glossy,” then “Deacon Blues” is glossy.

It shimmers and shines in a way that almost feels visual, even though the experience itself is entirely auditory.

Perhaps more than any other single track in the Steely Dan catalog — with the possible exception of its album mate, the title tune “Aja” — “Deacon Blues” represents the fullest realization of the Becker/Fagen aesthetic. This is that “thing,” for lack of a more effective word, that the duo had been driving toward since the beginning of their collaboration, and with stronger force since their disassembly of the core band post-Pretzel Logic.

Like “FM,” which it greatly resembles — right down to the Pete Christlieb tenor saxophone solo — “Deacon Blues” feels very much “lived-in” for me personally. The imagery of a man coming to grips with the intangibility of his hopes and dreams resonated powerfully with me when this song first hit my turntable (it was a thing, kids; look it up). The teenage angst of my early college years fit right alongside the midlife-crisis vibe. I listened to “Deacon Blues” frequently during that period — and by “frequently,” I mean several times back-to-back on days when I felt the yearning.

As Steely Dan songs go, “Deacon Blues” feels more transparent and accessible than many. The lyric dances through plenty of Becker and Fagen’s signature obtuse wordplay, but even when the references seem muddled — is “Deacon” a shout-out to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, or to NFL Hall of Fame defensive end David “Deacon” Jones? (hint: it’s the latter) — the thematic thread is crystal clear. Doubtless, this played some part in the tune’s chart success: it climbed to #19 (there’s that number again) on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the fifth Steely Dan single to hit the Top Twenty.

Part of what makes “Deacon Blues” so compelling for me is the rich musical tapestry over which Fagen and the female backup vocalists (the ineffable trio of Venetta Fields, Clydie King, and Sherlie Matthews once again) weave their story. Longtime Dan sideman Victor Feldman opens the proceedings on electric piano. Three superlative guitarists (Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour on electric, Dean Parks on acoustic) counterbalance a smooth-as-satin Tom Scott horn chart. Becker on bass and drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie lock down an easy-swinging rhythm. It all just melds. Like a perfectly grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

I’ve already mentioned the Pete Christlieb sax solo — at the time of the session, the Bard brothers only knew Christlieb from his work in the house band on the Tonight Show. The veteran jazzman came into the studio and laid down two improvisational runs — a rarity in working with the persnickety Becker and Fagen, who were notorious for demanding endless retakes before finding one acceptable. Christlieb’s second shot is the one that appears on the recording.

So, yeah. I love “Deacon Blues.” Love, love, love “Deacon Blues.”

Why, then, is it #2 in my rankings, and not #1?

Because #1 has many of the same benefits, but it also adds one other key element that makes it an exceptional track.

You already know — assuming you’ve been keeping tally — what #1 is.

We’ll talk about it in our next post.

[NOTE: The Steely Dan 64 Project represents my ranking, in order of my personal preference, of the 64 songs released by Steely Dan during their “classic” period (1972-80). These links will connect you to a detailed introduction to the project, as well as notes on the songs I’ve numbered 64 through 57; songs 56 through 49; songs 48 through 41; songs 40 through 33; songs 32 through 25; songs 24 through 17; songs 16 through 13]; songs 12 through 9; songs 8 and 7; and songs 6 and 5.]

Thanks (but no thanks) to COVID-19, the NCAA has no March Madness this year. Here at the Steely Dan 64 Project, however, we’re plunging ahead with our own Final Four. It starts here.

4. FM (No Static At All) (FM Soundtrack)
Give her some funked-up Muzak, she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae, she’ll love you twice
The girls don’t seem to care tonight
As long as the mood is right

As you’ve surmised by now, there are some Steely Dan tracks that I’ve lived with rather deeply. There are, however, few that I’ve lived with to the degree that I’ve lived with “FM.”

I’ve mentioned here before that, for the better part of two years, I worked at a college radio station in Malibu. Over the course of that time, I wore a number of hats: traffic manager (the person who organizes the schedule and identifies when commercials run); associate music director; baseball play-by-play broadcaster; and chief engineer for sports broadcasts. In and around all of the above, I was a disc jockey — originally on Saturday nights, then mid-mornings a couple of days per week. Plus, I filled in often when other on-air talent didn’t show. (We’re talking about college kids here, so that happened a lot.)

Unlike many college stations, which lean into alternative music genres that don’t get played much on commercial radio, our station’s daytime format corresponded to what most radio stations called “adult contemporary” or “light pop-rock.” Quite a few local businesses used our feed as background noise, so we couldn’t play anything too loud or aggressive in tone during daylight hours. And thus, whenever I went on the air in the morning, I kicked off my shift with Steely Dan’s “FM.”

To this day, I can still improvise a DJ break that exactly fills the 26 seconds of this track’s instrumental intro, and land the station ID a hair’s breadth before Donald Fagen’s vocal kicks in. The Pirate Queen — like a major dude — will tell you. I do it in the car every time “FM” comes on the radio.

“FM” occupies an unusual place in the Steely Dan catalog. It’s the only Dan single that didn’t come from one of their albums; it was recorded during the Aja sessions — and is stylistically similar to the material on that album — but was not included on that release. It’s the only official Steely Dan song recorded specifically for a movie soundtrack; Becker and Fagen produced the music for an independent film, You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It, but that happened before the band’s formation. It’s the only track from the Dan’s classic period on which Becker (guitars and bass) and Fagen (piano) play most of the primary instruments (frequent collaborator Jeff Porcaro plays drums, while Pete Christleib adds the saxophone solo). It’s also one of only two Dan tracks that uses strings (“Through With Buzz,” on Pretzel Logic, is the other).

Worthy of note: three members of the Eagles — Timothy Schmit (who made guest appearances on several other Dan tracks), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey — chime in with backing vocals here. We’ve noted previously that Becker and Fagen name-checked that legendary SoCal band in “Everything You Did” on The Royal Scam, only to receive a callback in the Eagles’ “Hotel California.” The two groups shared common management, and I shudder to imagine what else.

I always enjoyed spinning “FM” on my strictly formatted FM station precisely because the lyrics torpedo the blandness of that era and style of radio, and I knew that almost no one else would get the joke.

So far as was ever communicated to me, no one in the station hierarchy ever did.

Next up: Song #3.

[NOTE: The Steely Dan 64 Project represents my ranking, in order of my personal preference, of the 64 songs released by Steely Dan during their “classic” period (1972-80). These links will connect you to a detailed introduction to the project, as well as notes on the songs I’ve numbered 64 through 57; songs 56 through 49; songs 48 through 41; songs 40 through 33; songs 32 through 25; songs 24 through 17; songs 16 through 13]; songs 12 through 9; and songs 8 and 7.]

And then there were six.

6. Any Major Dude Will Tell You (Pretzel Logic)
Have you ever seen a squonk’s tears?
Well, look at mine
The people on the street have all seen better times

For the longest time, I had no idea what a squonk was. Okay, full disclosure: for the longest time, I had no idea what Donald Fagen was even saying in that line. Was it skunk? Spark? Spock? And why would any of those shed tears? (Especially Spock.)

Only decades later would I discover that the actual word was squonk. And only quite some time after that, when my buddy Tom Galloway explained it to me in detail, would I understand the significance of a squonk’s tears. Fortunately for you, there’s Wikipedia. (I’ll save you a click: a squonk is a grotesque mythical creature, allegedly native to Pennsylvania, that literally cries itself into a puddle of tears when frightened.)

When I say that Steely Dan got me through my college years, “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” is one of two songs — the second of which we have yet to cover in this ranking list — that played the largest role. There were days (and nights) when I played this track over and over, and over again, as a reminder to myself that things that seem horrific in the moment — as they often do, when one is in one’s salad days; young and green — eventually get better. True, sometimes they don’t get better. But that would make for a far less repeatable song.

Compared to the majority of tunes in the Steely Dan catalog, “Any Major Dude” (I’m just going to start conserving keystrokes now) is a simple song with a simple message. That’s part of its beauty; you don’t expect anything this direct and uplifting from the two guys Jay Black (of Jay and the Americans) referred to as “Manson and Starkweather,” so it comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s also a surprise that this track, one of the catchiest and most accessible in the Dan’s oeuvre, wasn’t released as a single; instead, it featured as the B-side (look it up, whippersnappers) to “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”

Dean Parks opens the song with a light acoustic guitar riff, followed by both Fagen and David Paich (later of Toto) on electric piano. Denny Dias handles the brief guitar solo. Those are the highlights. Sometimes, as in this instance, that’s all you need.

Given everything that’s going on in the world at the time of this writing, we all could benefit from the refrain: “When the demon is at your door, in the morning it won’t be there no more… any major dude will tell you.” Let’s all hope the major dudes have this one pegged.

5. Hey Nineteen (Gaucho)
It’s hard times befallen
The Soul Survivors
She thinks I’m crazy
But I’m just growing old

Those of you who know me in the real world know that 19 is a special number to me. Both my birthday and my late first wife KJ’s fall on the 19th of their respective months; we chose as our wedding date the 19th of the month in between them. I was 19 when KJ and I began dating, in a year whose digits added up to 19. Our daughter, whose birthday does not fall on a 19th, still chose a 19th as her wedding date to honor both her mother and me. It stands to reason, then, that “Hey Nineteen” would be one of my favorite songs by my favorite musical act. If you think I’m kidding about that, know that I drove around with these license plates on my car for a lot of years.

(And no, COVID-19 certainly does not count as “special.”)

Today, “Hey Nineteen” would probably be entitled “Okay Boomer” and written from the perspective of the young woman. But this is Steely Dan, and it was 1980, so instead the lyric follows the mindpath of a man approaching middle age who finds himself on a date with a teenager just a year past legal, and discovers that the two of them have nothing to say to one another. (Becker and Fagen were both in their early 30s when Gaucho was released, but I’ve always envisioned the protagonist of “Hey Nineteen” as somewhat older than that; late 30s or early 40s.)

Of course, for a lot of men of a certain age, the prospect of hooking up with a girl still young enough to warrant the use of that word would be a fantasy come true. Typical of the Dan, however, this song serves as musical reinforcement of the ancient maxim, “Be careful what you wish for — you might get it.” Our hapless narrator has to come to grips with the fact that his companion doesn’t relate to any of the things that are important to him, including music: she doesn’t even know who Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, is. (For a contemporary parallel, think of today’s 18-year-old pop music wunderkind Billie Eilish, who, in a recent interview with Jimmy Kimmel, didn’t know who Van Halen were.)

Fagen’s character pushes past his middle-aged angst with chemical assistance from “the Cuervo Gold” and “the fine Columbian,” and by focusing on the fact that his young companion “sure looks good” when she dances. But listening along, we know this interaction won’t end happily. Miss Nineteen will move on to more age-appropriate social connections — or perhaps won’t; patterns sometimes become habits — and our narrator will resign himself to loneliness until the next Nineteen comes along… because again, patterns sometimes become habits.

“Hey Nineteen” slides perfectly into the pocket of Gaucho‘s easy-rolling soul-jazz groove. A couple of musical choices catch my attention upon repeated listening. One, while Steely Dan frequently made sterling use of female backup choruses — at least, when not exploiting the talents of Michael McDonald — this song employs a pair of male vocalists (Frank Floyd and Zachary Sanders) in much the same way. Contextually, this makes sense; the male voices subtly echo the insecurities spinning in the narrator’s head. Second, the rhythm section plays a particularly vital role here. Becker on bass and Rick Marotta on drums lay down a deceptively casual floor for the rest of the instruments — most memorably, Fagen’s synthesizer — to glide over.

Peaking at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Hey Nineteen” marked Steely Dan’s third and final foray into the Top Ten (following “Do It Again” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”). For an act that produced so many enduring radio staples, the Dan rarely managed a major chart splash.

But when they hit, they hit.

The Final Four arrive next. And in all honesty, any of these last four could be #1, depending on my mood. (The same is true of both of the songs covered in this post, each of which was #1 at various points.) This ranking will represent the mood I was in the day I pronounced this project completed.

[NOTE: The Steely Dan 64 Project represents my ranking, in order of my personal preference, of the 64 songs released by Steely Dan during their “classic” period (1972-80). These links will connect you to a detailed introduction to the project, as well as notes on the songs I’ve numbered 64 through 57; songs 56 through 49; songs 48 through 41; songs 40 through 33; songs 32 through 25; songs 24 through 17; songs 16 through 13]; and songs 12 through 9.]

During the course of this project, there was a high degree of scrambling and shuffling of my ratings chart. (For those who are curious, I used an iPad app called Cardflow that enabled me to create individual cards — think index cards or Post-It notes — for each of the 64 songs, then move them around the screen at will. I’ll post a screenshot of my working chart in the final post.) Certain songs made dramatic moves up or down in the ratings, sometimes even as I was composing posts that included those songs.

My Top Eight, however, were set pretty solidly from the very beginning. The only real movement here was internal; the order of these eight did shuffle around a good deal. Seven of my Top Eight occupied the Number One position in at least one iteration, which tells you just how much all of these songs mean to me, and how small the distinctions are between them. On any given day, I might rethink and re-sort these into yet another different order. (At one point, I just had to stop myself and say, “No more finagling — this is the order I’m going with.”) But at this juncture, I don’t believe that any of the songs we’ll review from here on would ever fall lower than eighth.

Let’s begin the ascent to the summit.

8. Here at the Western World (Greatest Hits)
In the night you hide from the madman
You’re longing to be
But it all comes out on the inside
Eventually

Of all of the songs in this list of 64, “Here at the Western World” is probably the least familiar to the casual Steely Dan fan. Recorded during the sessions for The Royal Scam, Becker and Fagen elected not to use it either on that album or its followup, Aja.

I’m not sure why that decision was made. “Here at the Western World” compares favorably with the material on both of the aforementioned albums; if you’ve been keeping score, you’ve already figured out that I’ve only ranked one track from each of those albums higher than this. Sonically and tonally, “Western World” fits more seamlessly with the Aja material than with The Royal Scam, so perhaps Walter and Donald decided to reserve it from Scam in favor of their next record, then either forgot about it or didn’t have room for it when Aja‘s track list was being compiled.

Whatever occurred there, the Dan’s delay in creating their next studio album after Aja convinced ABC Records, their label at the time, to release a Greatest Hits set. Someone, somewhere, was inspired to resurrect “Here at the Western World” as a bonus cut on that compilation. And while it’s not truly a “greatest hit,” in that it was never released as a single and never charted, it definitely stands — in my opinion, and I’m the one writing here — among the very finest tracks the Dan ever produced.

As is usually the case with the boys from Bard, it’s tough to be 100% certain what “Here at the Western World” is about. It’s possible to interpret the titular location as either a bordello or a drug den or possibly both; I favor the first interpretation, but I wouldn’t argue with the others. The lyrics here are, even for the Dan, particularly twisty and sly. In any case, it’s yet another opportunity for Fagen and Becker to explore a slice of urban life’s seedy underbelly, as they were frequently wont to do.

From a musical perspective, it’s a beautifully simple song; for a team that excelled at devising spectacularly complex arrangements and tonalities, Becker and Fagen accomplished some of their most memorable work when they stripped everything down to basics. The entire musical corps supplies subtle support. Michael Omartian delivers a lovely, lilting piano backdrop, counterpointed against the rock-steady rhythm section of Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums and Chuck Rainey on bass. Similarly, Fagen’s vocal is buoyed by an all-female chorus; this time, it’s Leslie Miller, Casey Syszik, and Florence Warner. Frequent Dan sideman Dean Parks slips in a tasteful guitar solo just to round things out.

If you’ve never heard “Here at the Western World” — or even if you have — click the link above and immerse yourself in some Steely deliciousness. You’ll be glad you did.

7. Doctor Wu (Katy Lied)
Katy lies
You can see it in her eyes
But imagine my surprise
When I saw you

Are you with me, Doctor Woods?

That’s Phil Woods, whose alto sax solo provides the instrumental highlight of “Doctor Wu.” Becker and Fagen always did a superlative job of roping in top sidemen — once they had decided that a set band lineup didn’t put enough tools in their toolbox — and Phil Woods was about as top as sidemen got. I mean, Phil Woods was so close to being the next Charlie “Bird” Parker that he actually married Parker’s former common-law wife, Chan. (You could say that she had a type, and that type was world-class saxophone players.)

If you were Walter and Donald, who so idolized Parker that they wrote a song about him (“Parker’s Band”), and you can’t get Parker to play on one of your records — mostly because he died 17 years before you started making records — the next best thing would be Phil Woods. (Billy Joel thought so too; that’s Woods playing sax on Joel’s megahit “Just the Way You Are.”)

Now, “Doctor Wu” would be an excellent song even without Woods’s sax solo. Start with one of the catchiest, hookiest, most unavoidably infectious lyrics of any Dan song — seriously, try listening to this track and not walk away singing, “Are you with me, Doctor Wu? Are you really just a shadow of the man that I once knew?” Add one of Fagen’s warmest, most engaging vocal performances; sprinkle in a soupçon of drummer Jeff Porcaro’s sneaky-tight percussion; and you’ve got a recipe for bliss.

As for the title character himself, I’ve read numerous articles over the years that purported that there was a real-life Doctor Wu — maybe a psychiatrist, maybe a pharmacist, maybe a plastic surgeon to the stars. Becker and Fagen always maintained that Wu was fictional and metaphoric, though they didn’t always agree what the metaphor was supposed to be. Becker once claimed that Wu represented a breach of trust between a patient and physician; Fagen said in an interview that Wu was the personification of a drug addiction.

You believe what you choose. Just don’t ask Katy. She lies.

Next up: Songs #5 and #6. Where will your favorite land on my scale?