One litmus test to tell if you’re a baby boomer or older is if you can remember when the term “dude” was only used by surfer dudes or stoners out in California. In those days, everyone was aware of the term, but most people outside those two groups generally stayedRead More

“Night By Night” falls right in the middle of the best three song sequence on any Steely Dan album. Last week we took the occasion of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” to reflect on the genius of Jim Gordon. If Jim Gordon was the heir to Hal Blaine as theRead More

“Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” was a Top 5 hit in part because Steely Dan didn’t cut corners – especially when it came to the drummer.

It’s something we’ve visited before, but many Steely Dan songs touch on topics from Becker and Fagen’s youth in the 1960s (see “Boston Rag”, “My Old School”). Donald Fagen would later explicitly make an entire album recounting his aspirations and hopes from the late 1950s and early ’60s; I thinkRead More

A country love song delivered almost without any detectable irony is what follows “My Old School” on Countdown To Ecstasy. The charm of Countdown is it being full of styles and devices Becker and Fagen never visited again You May Also Like: Steely Dan, “Bodhisattva” from ‘Northeast Corridor’ (2021): SteelyRead More

Steely Dan’s “My Old School” features a boss, brassy Stax sound plopped right into a piano-driven hard shuffle – making this a fun, foot-stomping number.

Rick Derringer’s gloriously greasy slide guitar assured that “Show Biz Kids” would stand as one of Steely Dan’s better deep cuts.

A singer referenced in this Steely Dan song was best known for ‘Stripsody,’ where she used her voice to mimic comic-book sounds.

There aren’t a whole lot of lyrics to this Steely Dan song, but I’ve never been quite able to decipher them. No one else seems to be too sure what they mean, either.

Walter Becker once called himself as a “B+” guitarist. He’s certainly underrated there but as a bassist, I’d rate him even higher. Nonetheless, Becker had a history of making way for another bassist to play on a Steely Dan tune if he thought if that person was the better manRead More