For a Song: Peg

Steely Dan: Peg

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I’m sure that I am older than many of my readers. I first heard Steely Dan’s song Peg when the album came out. Peg was one of the hits that you couldn’t escape on the radio that year. I didn’t like it. Peg, and indeed everything off of Aja sounded overproduced to me. It sounded like the rest of the big productions that surrounded it on the airwaves. But, over time, my bias against overproduction began to waver. And Peg endured. Maybe as much as ten years later, it would still come up sometimes on the radio. At that point, I came to understand that Steely Dan was not like those other big acts of the 1970s. Intricate arrangements did not have to mean overproduction. And I started to realize that Steely Dan’s songs were not about the things that insipid pop songs of the 79s were about.

Peg is as close to a love song as Steely Dan ever created. The lyric is brief, and it describes feelings of adoration for a movie star. There isn’t really a twist in the subject, as there so often is in Steely Dan’s songs. But once you find subversion in their lyrics, you start to look for it in other places. Steely Dan gave their music a pop sheen that they perfected on the Aja album, but it masked jazz sensibilities. Listen to the chorus of Peg, and you will here a nice tune that you can almost sing along with. But then something goes horribly wrong on the words “in 3-D”. I first bought the album on vinyl, and the first time I heard that chord, I stopped the record and took it off the turntable, and inspected it closely. It looked OK, so I put the needle back on Peg, and it did it again. Again I stopped the record to inspect it, and again I found nothing. For those who may be unaware, vinyl albums can sometimes get warped. The surface can bend ever so slightly, and it causes horrible changes in the notes of the music. That’s what I thought happened. But it was strange, because the rest of the album was unaffected. Of course, the record wasn’t warped; that’s just a really weird chord in the vocals. I’m told that it is a jazz chord, and that given that, it makes perfect musical sense. If anyone can explain the theory behind this, please feel free to comment.

Mood Music

Mood music is a term that often means music that can easily put you to sleep, or can allegedly put a potential romantic partner “in the mood”. I have very little of that in my collection, because I also want something that rewards close listening. But some music definitely does set a powerful mood, and there also songs that capture the mood of the times to which they belong. So I’m perfectly happy to present some music that could fit these broader definitions.

Little Feat: Spanish Moon

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Spanish Moon is a song that perfectly captures the feel of a place. Little Feat make this a place where you can lose your heart or your money. The music will be fine, but the place can be dangerous. For the record, There is a place they call the Spanish Moon, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It doesn’t seem like to much of a stretch to think that this was the basis for the song, but it also might be that the song gave the place its name.

Squirrel Nut Zippers: Trou Macacq

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The narrator in this song becomes a monkey, driving in a pine box derby race. Should this be taken literally? I found an interpretation that said the song is about how Squirrel Nut Zippers felt about the music business. That makes sense to me. Whatever it means, it sounds great.

Sting: Rock Steady

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Rock Steady has always seemed to me to be the story of Noah’s Ark, told with a lot of winking. The point of view definitely changes things, in a way I find very appealing. Kenny Kirkland’s piano parts really make this one work musically.

Steely Dan: Don‘t Take Me Alive

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The idealism of the 1960s unleashed an enormous amount of energy. But by the mid-70s, the Vietnam War was over, and the civil rights movement began to seem less urgent after some important victories. This energy began to be directed inward, sometimes in destructive ways. Perhaps that is why Steely Dan’s antiheros resonated with the public. Don’t Take Me Alive features one these antiheros at a point of no return. Steely Dan lets us know that the narrator has done some horrible things, but they also engage our sympathy.

Spotlight Song of the Week:

Tom Mason: Just a Rose

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Tom Mason tells stories in his songs of stage magicians, witches, pirates, and ordinary people as well. No matter who the character is, Mason puts a bit of magic in the telling. Sometimes, as in Just a Rose, this is more about the mood of the music than the content of the lyrics. Mason plays guitar, accordion, harmonica, and trombone on the album; with that background, you would expect Mason to have a talent for arranging his songs, and that shows up elsewhere on the album more strongly than here. What Just a Rose does do is show what a fine group of musicians Mason has assembled for this album.

For a Song: Show Biz Kids

Steely Dan: Show Biz Kids

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Popular wisdom has it that Steely Dan was the duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. At the beginning, there was a regular band around them, even including another lead singer. But very soon, the line-up began to change, and kept changing, so that, in the end, the only constants were Becker and Fagen. In any case, they were the songwriters, and the line-up changes were mostly about them trying to find the right musicians to realize their musical vision.

That’s all the popular wisdom, but it leaves out the third member of Steely Dan. He had no hand in the songwriting, and he never played a note on their albums, but Steely Dan doesn’t sound right without him. This “third member” didn’t come back for the reunion albums, Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go. You can hear the difference his absence makes. I enjoy many moments from these two albums, but I consider them to be Becker/ Fagen albums. The missing third member was producer Gary Katz. He was the one who found and hired all of those jazz musicians who would become such an important part of the classic Steely Dan sound.

Now listen to Show Biz Kids. The songwriting is the equal of anything Steely Dan ever did. The song dates from the early days, when the members of the supporting band had mostly rock backgrounds. Even so, Katz found musicians who could reach for the sound Becker and Fagen wanted. I can hear in my head how the song would have sounded if it had been recorded for the album Aja, but even this way, it is immediately recognizable as a Steely Dan song. And that is not as true of those late albums, no matter how good they may be.

Quotable Lyrics

A song can make a strong first impression in a number of ways. The most obvious is probably a strong hook; a phrase in the instrumental line grabs you before the song is even fully underway. Sometimes a distinct vocal sound will do, especially if you are hearing an artist for the first time; Bob Dylan is the classic example of this. But there are times when the thing that stays with me is a line of the lyrics; this often takes the form of “did s/he really just say that?” Let me give you some examples.

Rickie Lee Jones: Danny‘s All Star Joint

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Danny’s All Star Joint was on Rickie Lee Jones’ debut album from 1979. At that time in my life, it sounded like a great place to hang out. I could see in my mind the pinball machines flashing. There would be a magazine rack with the latest comics, (there were no specialty comic book shops in those days). And there would have to be a lunch counter, hence the line, “Carte blanche sandwich, oh lettuce get thick!” If, in a moment of madness, I ever decide that I need to have another blog, I’m going to call it The Thickening Lettuce.

John Hiatt: Trudy and Dave

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John Hiatt is one of the most quotable songwriters I know. This is the man who rhymed Queen of Sheba with amoeba in Thing Called Love. But here is my favorite line of his: “stole the money for the laundromat and drove away clean.”

Steely Dan: Everything You Did

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The line here is, “turn up the eagles, the neighbors are listening”. I used to think that there were these two eagle statues in the room with volume knobs that emitted some sort of white noise. This didn’t make much sense, so I kept thinking about it. My next thought was that the song took place outside of Philadelphia, and the football game was on. This was better. But the most likely explanation was that a song by the Eagles was on the radio or the stereo. Ironically, the characters in this song don’t strike me as the type to listen to Steely Dan.

Lyle Lovett: Church

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Lyle Lovett is not afraid to write a song about something bizarre, and here is my favorite example. A gospel number about hunger, the climax of the story is the sudden appearance of a dove in the church. Referring to the preacher, Lovett sings, “...the dove flew down beside him, and a fork appeared right in his hand...”, and the conclusion, “...everyone got really nervous.”

Talking Heads: Seen and Not Seen

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David Byrne has never been afraid to be bizarre. Sometimes he carries this tendency too far, and it almost becomes self-parody. But, when he hits it right, as he does here, Byrne becomes an alien observer of human foibles, with much to teach us about ourselves. Seen and Not Seen is about our obsession with changing our appearance. The Line is, “some might have gotten half way there, and then changed their minds.”