We all owe The Dan

Steely Dan, the great band, caught my attention when their first album came out in 1972. They were rock enough for all but the hardest metalheads, they were pop enough to be played on the radio all the time, they were smooth jazz before anyone even came up with that category, and they got their name from the name of a, shall we say, appliance, in a book by William S. Burroughs, one of the leading beatniks of his day, and a friend of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. 

I'm not going to try to even describe the majesty of the band, except to say that they were better than we deserved! For many people, hearing their songs was the first time they ever looked into exegeses of the meaning of lyrics. For a nation that had to suffer with "And sometimes when we touch, The honesty’s too much, And I have to close my eyes and hide/ I want to hold you till I die, Till we both break down and cry, I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides" by Dan Hill - the perfect example of fake deepness and thought - to hear meaningful words was refreshing. Take these: "Any major dude with half a heart Surely will tell you, my friend Any minor world that breaks apart Falls together again" or "This is the day Of the expanding man That shape is my shade There where I used to stand It  seems like only yesterday I gazed through the glass  At ramblers Wild gamblers That's all in the past..."

The secret to Steely Dan, to me, was that their songs were more like books that happened to have catchy tunes.  A perfect example is "Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me" from their first album "Can't Buy A Thrill." Look at the song's title. It seems to be a six-word soup meaning nothing, but it means a lot to know that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the core and founders of the band, were sharing an apartment in Brooklyn and their downstairs neighbors was one of those princely types who thought the world owed him an ovation just for getting out of bed in the morning or whenever. The lyrics:

A race of angels

Bound with one another

A dish of dollars

Laid out for all to see

A tower room at Eden Roc

His golf at noon for free

Brooklyn owes the charmer

Under me

His lady's aching

To bring a body down

She daily preaches

On where she wants to be

An evening with a movie queen

A face we all have seen

Brooklyn owes the charmer

Under me

A case of aces

Done up loose for dealing

A piece of island cooling in the sea

The whole of time we gain or lose

And power enough to choose

Brooklyn owes the charmer

Under me

First time I heard this, I thought the band would continue to use Jeff "Skunk" Baxter's steel guitar and weave a little country sound in. Wrong. Steely Day used steel guitar only twice more, never as a lead instrument again.

So many people would want to write about an entitled neighbor but would say "Man, my neighbor bugs me." In this song, you don't find out just what the neighbor really does - is he a drug kingpin? A lazy mechanic? Someone with grandiose dreams and few accomplishments? - and that's the beauty of well-constructed lyrics - they give us enough room to imagine. 

If you have heard a lot of the Dan's music, you might say that does not sound like the guy who usually sings...and you're right. Donald Fagen was not quite a strong enough vocalist when ABC signed Steely Dan as a recording act, and the record company brought in David Palmer to sing this lead, as well as "Dirty Work" and doubling Fagen's singing on "Reelin' In The Years." By the time their next album "Countdown To Ecstasy" came out in '73, Fagen was ready for the task and Palmer saw himself to the door. He is a digital photographer now and also is entitled to one-sixth of the royalties on the songs he performed on, which might bring a nice check or two.

The band in Palmer's days (he's front and center)

Palmer today

If you have a minute, listen to the song! They don't write them like that anymore.