The original Steely Dan, with Donald Fagan, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, and Walter Becker, was moderately famous, but I contend it’s one of the best rock groups of all time: sui generis, with a unique mixture of jazz, rock, and other motifs. Although they’re in sad decline (Fagan’s lost that plaintive voice), I still revisit their music frequently.
This song (missing Skunk Baxter in this live version), is one of only a handful of rock songs that mention a college: and it’s mine! (Can you name some others?)
Wikipedia, however, is curmudgeonly (my emphasis):
In its March 24, 2006 edition, Entertainment Weekly details a return trip to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York by Donald Fagen, in which he describes a raid by sheriff’s deputies in May 1969. Fagen, his girlfriend Dorothy White, Steely Dan bandmate Walter Becker, and some 50 other students were arrested. Charges were dropped, but the harassment was the origin of the grudge alluded to in “My Old School”. Fagen was reportedly so upset with the school being complicit with the arrests that he refused to attend graduation. The same article speculates that a Bard professor’s wife,Rikki Ducornet, was the inspiration for “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”.
Because of the reference to The College of William & Mary in the lyrics, “My Old School” has long been a favorite of W&M students and alumni, although the song is actually about Bard College.
Not completely! At any rate, the Dan were never as good live as in the studio, and the guitar solos here, by John Herington, are competent but not as good as Baxter’s on the original version issued in 1973 on the album “Can’t buy a thrill.”
It was always great fun trying to figure out what the lyrics of Steely Dan songs meant (the band is named after a dildo). I’ve spent decades trying to figure out the lyrics of my favorite song of theirs: “Bad Sneakers” (below); and I’m not going to Google further (Wikipedia doesn’t give a clue). What, for instance, is “that fearsome excavation on Magnolia Boulevard”?
And “My Old School” is still popular at Jerry’s old school, although each year it seems that more and more freshmen need to be told about the Steely Dan reference.
Other colleges in rock? How about Chuck Berry’s “It Wasn’t Me,” which relates (from memory, now):
I met a German girl in England
who was going to school in France.
She said we danced at Mississippi
at an Alpha Kappa dance.
(I think Chuck meant to refer to the Kappa Alpha order, the exclusively Southern fraternity.)
That doesn’t count, for it doesn’t give the NAME of a college or university.
Jeez, you’re tough. University of Mississippi? Where there was a fraternity dance? “At” Mississippi (as opposed to “in” the state)? “Ole Miss” would play merry hell with the meter.
It just says “Mississippi,” and although it almost certainly refers to the school (aren’t there other schools in the state with that fraternity?), it’s not dead certain.
How about “Creeque Alley,” by the Mamas and the Papas?
“Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swathmore
But she changed her mind one day.”
Indeed, that’s another.
This is a website about Steely Dan lyrics that’s been around a long time and and attempts some interpretations (though how could anyone know whether their thoughts on Bad Sneakers are within a mile)
http://feverdreams.whatsmykarma.com
I’ve always loved Steely Dan and like all their albums with Katy Lied being my favourite. Aja, which is supposed to be their best, was always a step too far into sophistication for my taste. I like the earlier stuff with great melodies and tremendous playing.
“They call Alabama the Crimson Tide …”
That’s one, and it’s also by the Dan!
Brian Eno maintains that the voice is often just another instrument in a piece of music and that the content of the lyrics is not as important as their place in the overall composition. So maybe the answer is not to try to “figure out” the meaning of lyrics but to consider them as just another component of the music.
Ah, you beat me to it.
It is often what the words sound like in the song, not what they mean. Many lyricists over the years have admitted as much.
My father often complained that the lyrics in the music I listened to made no sense. My reply was this:
I like Little Orphan Annie’s “Leapin’ Lizards!”
She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at St Martin’s College
the immortal intro from the classic “Common People” by Pulp
Good one!
That is one of the all-time great club anthems right there.
There’s an amusing video using William Shatner’s cover of Common People overlaid on clips from Star Trek: the animated series.
The solo on ‘My Old School’ (actually played by Skunk Baxter) is simply one of the best ever. It’s a real pity that Baxter left his musical career behind.
Indeed, and I’ve corrected it: you couldn’t play that solo on bass guitar!
Jeff Baxter is one of rock’s most underrated guitarists. There are household names (I’m looking at you Ted Nugent) that aren’t half the player that Baxter was.
The Dan had access to some amazing guitarists – Skunk certainly was one of them. I always loved his plexiglass Strat. My favorite Dan solo would have to be the studio (of course) version of Bad Sneakers, which IIRC was played by Becker.
Ted who? 🙂
Steely Dan and King Crimson records were like a guitarist grad school program for me. When I reached that level beyond just being a competent rock guitarist, only then was I really ready to get deeply into both of these bands. I wasn’t really mature enough to appreciate it, as both a listener and a musician, until I was in my late twenties. Really, really great bands.
Steely Dan was on my horizon, but I never got around to acquiring their albums. I never passed up an opportunity to listen to them on the radio or listening with friends, but also never felt motivated to collect.
I do, however, have a good deal of King Crimson (and related bands) material and consider Robert Fripp to be the best technical player in the business. It may seem strange, but my mother and I bonded musically over liking King Crimson. Interestingly, several of KC’s “studio” albums were actually mixed from live performance recordings. Maybe that’s why their recordings and their live performances sounded so similar.
Eton Rifles – The Jam
Nice to see The Jam mentioned! Too bad they never caught on in the ‘States. Talented songwriting by Weller and great musicianship.
Best. Band. Ever. I remember anxiously waiting for Aja to come out in 1978? I was at the University of Maine, Orono (no rock songs about that place) Worth the wait.
Bob Dylan – “Baby Let Me Follow You Down”
“first heard this from Ric von Schmidt. He lives in Cambridge.
Ric is a blues guitarplayer. I met him one day on
The green pastures of the Harvard University
Now all we need is a lyric with U of Chicago in it…
Stanford had Kappa Alphas back in my day.
A good high school friend from London ( who became a composer and music prof) roomed with the Steely Dan pair at Bard. He reconnected with them in maybe the late 70s when they came through Berkeley. He invited them out for dinner and they acted very badly and left him with a huge bill…Not that this has anything to do with their music, but he was kind of disgusted with them as non-menches.
I just saw them on Long Island over the weekend. I have always loved their albums, Royal Scam and Katy Lied are my favorites. They are competent live, but they lose some of the magic of the studio.
As many of you probably know, they refused to tour for decades because of the feeling that they couldn’t re-create the perfection of their studio albums. They always had great musicians join their albums as Skunk and Larry Carlton come to mind. Herrington is good, but…..
Overall, I am happy they decided to tour again and I have enjoyed the six shows i have seen.
No college named, but one or two implied:
‘I was a dandy Gamma Chi/ Sweet things from Boston/ So young and willing/ Moved down to Scarsdale/ Where the hell am I?’
–‘Hey Nineteen’
I’m a big fan of Steely Dan’s music too. I love the horn lick that comes after the line ‘California tumbles into the sea’ in My Old School, about 4’10” in the version here.
I’m hard pressed to chose a favourite song so many of them have interesting grooves and lyrics, but just for fun I’m going to suggest ‘Reeling in the Years’.
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A great band with too many great songs to choose from, though you have highlighted two of my favorites. Others I like best are ‘Midnight Cruiser’, ‘Black Friday’, and ‘Deacon Blues’.
You’ve finally picked a band that I really like.
My own favorite Steely Dan songs:
Hey Nineteen
Black Cow
FM
When I go to the dentist I cue up my Steely Dan playlist and relax.
I’m not a big fan of concerts, I listen to the music for the music, not the screaming fans, besides which the sound is usually terrible. I do like live music for acoustic instruments in small personal settings, (I love being able to hear and feel a cello or violin) but so often those with amplified instruments feel the need to crank the volume until it distorts badly, or so loud my ears ring for days.
I want to keep my hearing as long as possible.
I love the posts about music. So many readers here have such good taste. Pulp, The Jam, Steely Dan, I’m queing up a massive playlist on itunes right now.
quede up Hot Rats yet? 🙂
Not yet. Still on the road for work. I’ll have time when I get home this Friday.
Great start to a…um…Wednesday?…Wednesday morning!
b&
I can’t think of any good universities in rock songs just now, but I want to point out my favorite obscure Steely Dan lyric of all time, from “Any Major Dude” comes this: “Have you ever seen a squonk’s tears? Well look at mine.”
Da Roolz! Squonk = Lacrimacorpus dissolvens.
My favourite Lyrics are:
“Throw back the little ones
And pan-fry the big ones
Use tact, poise and reason
And gently squeeze them”
In their first post-Peter Gabriel album, Genesis devoted a whole song to the squonk. The lyrics are here and a performances are here.
I appear to have messed up on the links and put in a stray “a”.
The lyrics are at http://www.metrolyrics.com/squonk-lyrics-genesis.html and the performances are at http://www.ask.com/youtube?q=lyrics+genesis+squonk&v=TzL-up4ZKgI&qsrc=472.
What a lovely story song–the Squonk by Genesis always dissolving leaving only a pool of tears. A whole album of stories and beautiful music. Steely Dan must have been a fan.
I didn’t mean to squonkify the whole comments section! Also, I was worried I had missed something in the official Da Roolz about not mentioning said sad squonk. I am well aware of the Genesis reference, which truly is excellent, but I just want to be clear, Steely Dan was there first! Pretzel Logic, with “Any Major Dude” came out in 1974, while Genesis’ “A Trick of the Tail” was 1976. Thanks for indulging my inner pedant.
I still remember being in a record store around 1978, and I picked up an eight-track of Steely Dan’s greatest hits (it was like a double-album of pre-Aja songs on one eight-track). A guy I knew who happened to be there told me it was really good, and that all those songs that I had never heard of were just as good as the few I had heard of. So I bought it.
I thought recently that if I ever were to run into that guy again, I need to thank him. I went on to buy all the (vinyl) albums in college, then a couple of years ago I acquired all the albums in digital form and are on my iPhone. Steely Dan is my all-time favorite band.
Some of my favorites:
Deacon Blues (for the lyrics)
Aja (for the drums)
Pearl of the Quarter
Bodhisattva (guitar)
Daddy Don’t Live in That New York City No More
Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Don’t Take Me Alive
Haitian Divorce (lyrics, guitar)
Steely Dan is second only to the Beatles on my list! I saw them in Indianapolis last year and thought they were incredible.
Steely Dan visited downunder last year with Steve Winwood in tow as support, had to go to that. Fagan and Winwood were not strong vocally but eh we are all getting on, so never mind the bollocks.
I thought Little Feat, early Chicago Transit Authority and Jethro Tull were all classic bands with a difference. Followed by Genesis and Supertramp, the latter being a little more commercial.
Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” (sung to the tune of “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from “Pirates of Penzance”) concludes the then list of elements with “These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha’vard
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discavard.”
And Lehrer also did “Fight Fiercely, Harvard” – but then he is a Harvard alumnus (and taught and did grad work there), so the emphasis on that one school is understandable.
Great rhyme!
Tom Lehrer has such fun with words! I’m particularly fond of his rhyme for orange:
Eating an orange
While making love
Makes for bizarre enj-
Oyment thereof.
Brilliantly funny guy:-)
Another Dan aficionado! My man. I beg to differ about live though. Saw ’em on stage in Dublin, 10 or 15 years ago, and they reproduced the whole sound magically. While a big fan of your blog you’ve just gone up another notch in my estimation – animal lover, atheist, rationalist and now a Steely Dan fan. Why is it my young fella says “my brother from another mother”?
I thought that the name was taken from a IUD but I can’t find a reference
Classic Yacht rock, I do enjoy it esp reelin in the years