STEELY DAN has Lyrics sooooo DEEEEEP it takes many listens to understand the whole message. Most of their tunes are happy in melody but have a very dark side. Heroin, robberies, cheating, every sin a man can make, are turned into wonderful songs with happy melodies.
wika The concept of the "expanding man" that opens the song may have been inspired by Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. Walter and I were major sci-fi fans. The guy in the song imagines himself ascending to the levels of evolution, "expanding" his mind, his spiritual possibilities, and his options in life.[9] The song was largely written at Fagen's house in Malibu and was prompted by his observation that "if a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the 'Crimson Tide' the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well."[2] The song's protagonist, muses Fagen, is somewhat "autobiographical in that it reflected the dreams [Fagen and Becker had] about becoming jazz musicians while . . . living in the suburbs."[10] Characterized as a "loser" by Becker, the song's subject was meant to reflect "a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life".[2] In his 2013 memoir Eminent Hipsters, Fagen gives credit to Norman Mailer as inspiration for the narrator's persona:
They are one of a kind, but underrated? They were wildly successful and revered. But, I don’t know about younger people, so maybe you are right in that case.
I read a few years ago that the album "Aja" that came out in 1977, could not be made today. Just the producing of this album was just over $2 million dollars back then.
They HAVE played this on 'every jazz station' since 1976 - that's almost 50 years. sigh... but when Drinking Education is so low that beer drinking is equating to sippin' scotch... oh lordy...
In 2010, the album was recognized by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. It is considered one of the most perfectly recorded albums.
Thanks Mugs, that is a song I could listen to over and over till I crashed lol. The lyrics, the style and sound of the singer, the sax, producing.Someone had suggested another Steely Dan song and I immediately thought of Deacon Blues. "I cried when I wrote this song, excuse me if I take so long". Bam
From the roots of Jazz, AJA pronounced Asia is one of the greatest albums ever produced. They were musical perfectionists, hired many of the best studio musicians, rejected many of their tracks for perfection. This album has been used many times as a standard for testing stereo systems
Nice reaction. At the time this was released, Wake Forest was the smallest school in the country in the top division. Being in the acc they had to play all the BIG schools in the country. Often overmatched but often an overachiever. I think Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker were expressing their admiration for all the little dogs who must stand up to all the big dogs most of us must face in life.
Steely Dan dropped "Deacon Blues" when I was eleven or thereabouts, so listening to it sometimes takes me back to 1978, at least for a few moments. The song really sounded great on an FM stereo radio set up with decent box speakers. Those sax solos slay. The final line in the chorus -- "They call Alabama the Crimson Tide \ Call me Deacon Blues \ (Deacon Blues)" -- confused me the first few times I heard the song without paying attention to the lyrics. The line about the Crimson Tide left me thinking about football and there was a famous football player back in the sixties and seventies named Deacon Jones who played for the Los Angeles Rams. So for a time I thought the song was about him rather than about a daydreaming jazz fan and more.
Love the Dan...top notch musicianship, songwriting and composition, and NO way this album could ever get made today and put on the airwaves. What a time to be alive to hear this firsthand when it came out. Today's music is lacking in this kind of cross pollination---blues, rock, jazz, R&B all masterfully put together. The entire album is great, no filler! Love "Josie", as it has one of the weirdest opening riffs of any song. And they made it work!
Steely Dan's songs can have lyrics that require a lot of background, or history, or have a variety of cultural touchstones--references to famous books and authors, or movies, or legends, or historical events. Even if you don't pick up on what some lines have in view, the music itself is marvelous alone. The chord progressions are far and away the stuff of jazz and blues and fusion, some so complex that only a trained musician will fully appreciate it. They are unique in that way; no comparison to other groups.
Dude, your reaction was perfect! I swear your face lit up the way mine must have when I first heard this song. I was sixteen when this got tons of airplay. I couldn't get enough of Steely Dan for the rest of my days. Steely Dan is a rabbit hole you'll never recover from... in the best possible way. You can't NOT MOVE when Steely Dan is playing, especially this song!
Nice reaction. "The Crimson Tide," of course, refers to the University of Alabama football team, perennial winners. As a joke, Steely Dan leaders Donald and Walter contrast this with the lowly Wake Forest University fighting Deacon Demons, frequently losers on the playing field. "Aja" is my favorite all time album, every song a masterpiece.
Except in a 2015 Wall Street Journal interview, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen debunk this belief. While still a wink and a nod to football (of which the duo weren't avid fans), the "Deacon" in the song was an ironic moniker inspired by future Hall of Fame defensive lineman Deacon Jones. From the article: Fagen: “Walter and I wrote ‘Deacon Blues’ in Malibu, Calif., when we lived out there. Walter would come over to my place and we’d sit at the piano. I had an idea for a chorus: If a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the ‘Crimson Tide,’ the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well.” Becker: “Donald had a house that sat on top of a sand dune with a small room with a piano. From the window, you could see the Pacific in between the other houses. ‘Crimson Tide’ didn’t mean anything to us except the exaggerated grandiosity that’s bestowed on winners. ‘Deacon Blues’ was the equivalent for a loser in our song.” Fagen: "When Walter came over, we started on the music, then started filling in more lyrics to fit the story. At that time, there had been a lineman with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Chargers, Deacon Jones. We weren’t serious football fans, but Deacon Jones’s name was in the news a lot in the 1960s and 1970s, and we liked how it sounded. It also had two syllables, which was convenient, like ‘Crimson.’ The name had nothing to do with Wake Forest’s Demon Deacons or any other team with a losing record. The only Deacon I was familiar with in football at the time was Deacon Jones.”
@@glenncraven8237 Thank you. Very interesting to learn this. Also, I think "blues" serves a double meaning here. A somber color in contrast to the vibrant, positive crimson. But also expresses the feeling of being down and sad.
Definitely one of the greatest albums ever produced. Great songs and arrangements and the production is flawless. One of my favorites of all time. Listen to the track Aja next time. Steely Dan always has fascinating lyrics as well as you discovered. Good reaction.
Hallelujah. You listened to Steely Dan. Go Down the Rabbit Hole. You will find music that you will be listening to in Twenty Years. I've been listening to since I bought on LP when it first came out. Still nothing can beat it. Timeless. Enjoy the ride. Peace
Thanks Mugs, I got a vicarious thrill watching & listening to you experience this band for the first time. Please check out more of the Aja album (pronounced "Asia"). It's luxurious, dark and seductive, with some of the best session musicians and audio engineering you'll ever hear. Steely Dan is musical genre unto their own.
Terrific reaction. The chorus uses football as a metaphor but I don't think the song really isn't about that. As you pointed out, the "expanding man" appears twice - in the beginning of the song he is staring through a window at wild people enjoying the nightlife; in the the last verse he has joined them and is on stage, presumably having learned to "work" the saxaphone. Imo the song is about embracing a lifestyle that you know won't be good for you in the long run.
From the FIRST time I heard this album when it was released until today this is my #1 favorite album of all! You have much more to enjoy! Rock rhythms and jazz chords, great solos by famous session musicians, and lyrics worth paying attention to!
“Can’t Buy a Thrill” is their best album, imo. I think Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were music students at Julliard… they were from NYC that much I know.
Check the lyrics on a lot of their song. They have a dark side and drugs were a part of it. Chasing the Dragon about Heroin, Kid Charlemagne about a drug dealer. etc. These boys played heavily in their time. Only two of them at the creative core.. The band players were musicians hired for the sessions and constantly changed. Check out the musicians on Aja. It's the '27 Yankees ""Murders Row" of the best. Larry Carlton on guitar, Michael Omardian on keyboards. Steve Gadd on drums. The cast of musicians changed but always the best. If it wasn't Gadd, maybe Bernard Purdy. etc. This music is my favorite. So nuanced and complex. Dark and beautiful. Playful and a Fuck You attitude. The name Steel Dan came from a novel, Naked Lunch, written in the 60s. In the novel by Wm Burroughs, Steely Dan was a "Steam Powered Dildo from Yokohama" heh.
It's a National Anthem for losers, for underdogs, for the ones on the outside looking in. "...die behind the wheel" may seem morbid at first, but it's metaphorical, not literal: dying behind the wheel in this context is a poetic description of something heroic, larger than life, the opposite of mundane. One of the greatest songs of all time.
I was always struck by the line "learn to work the saxophone" instead of play the saxophone. Because this is the perspective of a person fantasizing about becoming something other than what he is, but he doesn't quite understand music. So you can't just go out and work an instrument like it's an exercise that you do and it just suddenly starts creating music. It sort of demonstrates his fantasy and how far he is from it! You can't just "work" an instrument like you're just doing the movement. (Okay of course you have to do the movement in playing and learning, but there's much more to it!) It sort of shows his fundamental misunderstanding, but hey he's just fantasizing about becoming Deacon Blues. (Yeah thats it, I'll drink smooth booze and wear cool sunglasses and drive a killer caddy and ladies will melt at my saxophone music!)
It’s about a guy who is currently living a safe but humdrum life. But in his mind, he glorifies the artistic, dangerous lifestyle of a the professional musicians he admires. So he’s fantasizing becoming a musician himself. He would rather live the fast life (of one of the “losers” in life) than the one he’s currently living.
Nice take on an awesome song and group. Not (necessarily) about a collage football team, though. Steely lyrics are much less literal and more nuanced. More like a guy saying I may not be the most popular, but I will do my own thing and go out in style even if Im a nobody.
Go down the rabbit hole of steely Dan,one of my favorite all time bands,if you can call them that,of course it's was Donald Fagan and Walter Becker really .just amazing. The best top of the line studio musicians they always got,and Michael McDonald is the very best also
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 78 | คู่เอก "ปกรณ์ vs ฟาบิโอ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LSOmgl0Th2c/mqdefault.jpg)
STEELY DAN has Lyrics sooooo DEEEEEP it takes many listens to understand the whole message. Most of their tunes are happy in melody but have a very dark side. Heroin, robberies, cheating, every sin a man can make, are turned into wonderful songs with happy melodies.
exactly, must listen to the lyrics and even then can be confusing.
Love Steely Dan
Nothing like chillin’ with Mugs to Steely Dan on a stormy evening 😊
"...and die behind the wheel" is such an unexpected line 😵😵💫
wika
The concept of the "expanding man" that opens the song may have been inspired by Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. Walter and I were major sci-fi fans. The guy in the song imagines himself ascending to the levels of evolution, "expanding" his mind, his spiritual possibilities, and his options in life.[9]
The song was largely written at Fagen's house in Malibu and was prompted by his observation that "if a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the 'Crimson Tide' the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well."[2] The song's protagonist, muses Fagen, is somewhat "autobiographical in that it reflected the dreams [Fagen and Becker had] about becoming jazz musicians while . . . living in the suburbs."[10] Characterized as a "loser" by Becker, the song's subject was meant to reflect "a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life".[2] In his 2013 memoir Eminent Hipsters, Fagen gives credit to Norman Mailer as inspiration for the narrator's persona:
Thank you
Steely Dan is one of a kind and so underrated.
They are one of a kind, but underrated? They were wildly successful and revered. But, I don’t know about younger people, so maybe you are right in that case.
Ahhh, you get it. A lot of people don't. ❤😊
How so?
I don't think I've ever seen a reactor not love Steely Dan.
@@ajschroetlin2196 I didn't say anything about anyone not loving it.
Steely Dan = smooth! So great! AJA one of the best ever!
I read a few years ago that the album "Aja" that came out in 1977, could not be made today. Just the producing of this album was just over $2 million dollars back then.
They HAVE played this on 'every jazz station' since 1976 - that's almost 50 years. sigh... but when Drinking Education is so low that beer drinking is equating to sippin' scotch... oh lordy...
This is wonderful dark, smooth, sophisticated, jazzy, pop music. Great writing, great musicians. Loved your reaction, Mugs.
AJA was the best album, I love every song on it, Decon Blues is classic
In 2010, the album was recognized by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. It is considered one of the most perfectly recorded albums.
@@whey4u That is way high praise.
Thanks Mugs, that is a song I could listen to over and over till I crashed lol. The lyrics, the style and sound of the singer, the sax, producing.Someone had suggested another Steely Dan song and I immediately thought of Deacon Blues. "I cried when I wrote this song, excuse me if I take so long". Bam
Steely Dan…the thinking persons band 👍👍👍👍
From the roots of Jazz, AJA pronounced Asia is one of the greatest albums ever produced. They were musical perfectionists, hired many of the best studio musicians, rejected many of their tracks for perfection.
This album has been used many times as a standard for testing stereo systems
Yes I believe it, the production was fantastic.
Nice reaction. At the time this was released, Wake Forest was the smallest school in the country in the top division. Being in the acc they had to play all the BIG schools in the country. Often overmatched but often an overachiever. I think Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker were expressing their admiration for all the little dogs who must stand up to all the big dogs most of us must face in life.
Steely Dan dropped "Deacon Blues" when I was eleven or thereabouts, so listening to it sometimes takes me back to 1978, at least for a few moments. The song really sounded great on an FM stereo radio set up with decent box speakers. Those sax solos slay. The final line in the chorus -- "They call Alabama the Crimson Tide \ Call me Deacon Blues \ (Deacon Blues)" -- confused me the first few times I heard the song without paying attention to the lyrics. The line about the Crimson Tide left me thinking about football and there was a famous football player back in the sixties and seventies named Deacon Jones who played for the Los Angeles Rams. So for a time I thought the song was about him rather than about a daydreaming jazz fan and more.
yes I remember Deacon Jones.
Love the Dan...top notch musicianship, songwriting and composition, and NO way this album could ever get made today and put on the airwaves. What a time to be alive to hear this firsthand when it came out. Today's music is lacking in this kind of cross pollination---blues, rock, jazz, R&B all masterfully put together. The entire album is great, no filler! Love "Josie", as it has one of the weirdest opening riffs of any song. And they made it work!
Steely Dan's songs can have lyrics that require a lot of background, or history, or have a variety of cultural touchstones--references to famous books and authors, or movies, or legends, or historical events.
Even if you don't pick up on what some lines have in view, the music itself is marvelous alone. The chord progressions are far and away the stuff of jazz and blues and fusion, some so complex that only a trained musician will fully appreciate it. They are unique in that way; no comparison to other groups.
Definitely one of the best albums ever went thru several copies myself
Thru me for a loop 😂
Great reaction to one of my favorite “bands”!! I’ve yet to meet a Steely Dan song I didn’t like….there is SO MUCH more to hear!!! ☮️💜
Dude, your reaction was perfect! I swear your face lit up the way mine must have when I first heard this song. I was sixteen when this got tons of airplay. I couldn't get enough of Steely Dan for the rest of my days. Steely Dan is a rabbit hole you'll never recover from... in the best possible way. You can't NOT MOVE when Steely Dan is playing, especially this song!
Nice reaction. "The Crimson Tide," of course, refers to the University of Alabama football team, perennial winners. As a joke, Steely Dan leaders Donald and Walter contrast this with the lowly Wake Forest University fighting Deacon Demons, frequently losers on the playing field. "Aja" is my favorite all time album, every song a masterpiece.
My favorite too
Except in a 2015 Wall Street Journal interview, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen debunk this belief. While still a wink and a nod to football (of which the duo weren't avid fans), the "Deacon" in the song was an ironic moniker inspired by future Hall of Fame defensive lineman Deacon Jones.
From the article:
Fagen: “Walter and I wrote ‘Deacon Blues’ in Malibu, Calif., when we lived out there. Walter would come over to my place and we’d sit at the piano. I had an idea for a chorus: If a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the ‘Crimson Tide,’ the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well.”
Becker: “Donald had a house that sat on top of a sand dune with a small room with a piano. From the window, you could see the Pacific in between the other houses. ‘Crimson Tide’ didn’t mean anything to us except the exaggerated grandiosity that’s bestowed on winners. ‘Deacon Blues’ was the equivalent for a loser in our song.”
Fagen: "When Walter came over, we started on the music, then started filling in more lyrics to fit the story. At that time, there had been a lineman with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Chargers, Deacon Jones. We weren’t serious football fans, but Deacon Jones’s name was in the news a lot in the 1960s and 1970s, and we liked how it sounded. It also had two syllables, which was convenient, like ‘Crimson.’ The name had nothing to do with Wake Forest’s Demon Deacons or any other team with a losing record. The only Deacon I was familiar with in football at the time was Deacon Jones.”
@@glenncraven8237 Thank you. Very interesting to learn this. Also, I think "blues" serves a double meaning here. A somber color in contrast to the vibrant, positive crimson. But also expresses the feeling of being down and sad.
Definitely one of the greatest albums ever produced. Great songs and arrangements and the production is flawless. One of my favorites of all time. Listen to the track Aja next time. Steely Dan always has fascinating lyrics as well as you discovered. Good reaction.
Like the bass in this song!
Steely Dan is always for the win. Just a top tier artist in so many ways. God I love them.
Steely Dan's AJA album is how leather sofas feel and good whisky tastes.
There are a few videos of Steely Dan playing the Midnight Special tv show.
Doesn't get much more 70s❤😂
Hallelujah. You listened to Steely Dan. Go Down the Rabbit Hole. You will find music that you will be listening to in Twenty Years. I've been listening to since I bought on LP when it first came out. Still nothing can beat it. Timeless. Enjoy the ride. Peace
Top notch video Mug. Nice way to ease into my morning it was. Ty mate ☘️🇺🇲
Thanks Mugs, I got a vicarious thrill watching & listening to you experience this band for the first time. Please check out more of the Aja album (pronounced "Asia"). It's luxurious, dark and seductive, with some of the best session musicians and audio engineering you'll ever hear. Steely Dan is musical genre unto their own.
Loved the whole album! 💿
Great Reaction 👍🙏💯😎
Terrific reaction. The chorus uses football as a metaphor but I don't think the song really isn't about that. As you pointed out, the "expanding man" appears twice - in the beginning of the song he is staring through a window at wild people enjoying the nightlife; in the the last verse he has joined them and is on stage, presumably having learned to "work" the saxaphone. Imo the song is about embracing a lifestyle that you know won't be good for you in the long run.
From the FIRST time I heard this album when it was released until today this is my #1 favorite album of all! You have much more to enjoy! Rock rhythms and jazz chords, great solos by famous session musicians, and lyrics worth paying attention to!
Cowriter Walter Becker described Deacon Blues as "an epic vision of loserdom".
Probably my favorite song. ❤
The Alabama Crimson Tide were winning titles… the Wake Forrest Demon Deacons were bums. The reference is still valid today.
“Can’t Buy a Thrill” is their best album, imo. I think Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were music students at Julliard… they were from NYC that much I know.
We Cool We Cool!
Best all-time! Aja ❤ Almost named my daughter that. Excellent
Class act.
Languid means not really wanting to move.
Two Bard boys Walter Becker and Donald Fagan. My place in time.
Aja-Steely Dan. A top 10 album of the 70’s.
Deacon Blues is the fav for me from Aja but the earlier years of Steely albums are better as far as the rawness goes .. Aja is spit shined polished
Taking his time in there...lanquishing.
When this song came out, Wake Forest was so bad at football that I gave 50 points in a game and won easily.
Good stuff.
This is the band sampled by kanye and also lord t. Try black cow, blow you away.
Like to listen to Steely Dan while in the pool smoking a cigar and sipping on some good bourbon….just relaxing good times…
Liked and subscribed. Best regards
Check the lyrics on a lot of their song. They have a dark side and drugs were a part of it. Chasing the Dragon about Heroin, Kid Charlemagne about a drug dealer. etc. These boys played heavily in their time. Only two of them at the creative core.. The band players were musicians hired for the sessions and constantly changed. Check out the musicians on Aja. It's the '27 Yankees ""Murders Row" of the best. Larry Carlton on guitar, Michael Omardian on keyboards. Steve Gadd on drums. The cast of musicians changed but always the best. If it wasn't Gadd, maybe Bernard Purdy. etc. This music is my favorite. So nuanced and complex. Dark and beautiful. Playful and a Fuck You attitude. The name Steel Dan came from a novel, Naked Lunch, written in the 60s. In the novel by Wm Burroughs, Steely Dan was a "Steam Powered Dildo from Yokohama" heh.
THANK YOU FROM BUFFALO, NEW YORK. TRY BOZ SCAGGS, LOOK WHAT YOUVE DONE TO ME. 2004 CONCERT.
NC baby...✌️
More Steely Dan try either Kid Charlemagne, Don't Take Me Alive or Any Major Dude
Do "FM" next, you won't regret it
It's a National Anthem for losers, for underdogs, for the ones on the outside looking in. "...die behind the wheel" may seem morbid at first, but it's metaphorical, not literal: dying behind the wheel in this context is a poetic description of something heroic, larger than life, the opposite of mundane. One of the greatest songs of all time.
Personally, i think Can't buy a thrill is a much better album than Aja.
I was always struck by the line "learn to work the saxophone" instead of play the saxophone. Because this is the perspective of a person fantasizing about becoming something other than what he is, but he doesn't quite understand music. So you can't just go out and work an instrument like it's an exercise that you do and it just suddenly starts creating music. It sort of demonstrates his fantasy and how far he is from it! You can't just "work" an instrument like you're just doing the movement. (Okay of course you have to do the movement in playing and learning, but there's much more to it!) It sort of shows his fundamental misunderstanding, but hey he's just fantasizing about becoming Deacon Blues. (Yeah thats it, I'll drink smooth booze and wear cool sunglasses and drive a killer caddy and ladies will melt at my saxophone music!)
It’s about a guy who is currently living a safe but humdrum life. But in his mind, he glorifies the artistic, dangerous lifestyle of a the professional musicians he admires. So he’s fantasizing becoming a musician himself. He would rather live the fast life (of one of the “losers” in life) than the one he’s currently living.
ANY “RAGAE BLUES” SONGS?❤😊❤❤❤😊❤❤❤😊❤❤❤😊❤❤
Steely Dan writes songs about misfits and gentlemen losers and the romance of being a loser.
Nice take on an awesome song and group. Not (necessarily) about a collage football team, though. Steely lyrics are much less literal and more nuanced. More like a guy saying I may not be the most popular, but I will do my own thing and go out in style even if Im a nobody.
Dude, why did you sit stone-faced and unmoved throughout the entire tenor sax solo? Really?
Go down the rabbit hole of steely Dan,one of my favorite all time bands,if you can call them that,of course it's was Donald Fagan and Walter Becker really .just amazing. The best top of the line studio musicians they always got,and Michael McDonald is the very best also
Michael McDonald isn't on this one I know but so many of their songs he is
Best Group of all Times..check out BLACK COW