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May 22, 2006
Circe: such a temptress, but such a poor cook.
A little background on this one: when I first started writing Molars, I desperately wanted to do a theme week based around Steely Dan. I figured it'd be pretty boring if it was just me writing, so I tried to find some other Dan aficianados to contribute. At one point, I had a few other mp3bloggers lined up, but the whole thing kind of fizzled when no one actually sent in their entries, etc. My own fault, probably. Anyway, the following is something I had written two years ago (for something else entirely, that also never materialized)- I found it recently, and thought it might be fun to put it up here, as a sort of one-day version of what I had originally intended. Not great writing (a little maudlin), but it's passable...
Steely Dan - Reelin' In The Years
In the brisk year after I proposed (unsuccessfully) to several dark-haired girls in my sixth grade class, but before I (voluntarily) trundled myself off to boarding school, I became utterly infatuated with Steely Dan. Like many things that happened to me when I was 12, this was an accident. My uncle had given "A Decade of Steely Dan", a sort of greatest hits retrospective, to my dad as a birthday present, and my dad, with his customary unbridled enthusiasm for gifts, had given the Dan a three week tenure on the family stereo (eclipsing the previous record of two weeks, held by Steve Winwood and his album "Refugees of the Heart", which if my mom had had her way, would have somehow melted itself into the CD player).
I'm sure everyone has experienced the odd sensation of being slowly won over by music, especially music that, upon first listen, you sort of hate with ruthless and irrational passion. Steely Dan, to my young ears, sounded almost alien: clean, crisp production, with freakishly tight, airless rhythm tracks, and lyrics that reminded me of nothing so much as wandering around family reunions or company picnics late at night, all sugared-up on soda, watching my parents drink, laugh, and have conversations that made little sense to, and had nothing to do with, me. Steely Dan's music felt like something off-limits, adult, vaguely debauched, and ridiculously weird- all of which made me dislike and want to understand it at the same time.
I sat myself down in front of our family stereo system, which, because of its advanced technology, occupied about nine cubic yards of the living room, and listened. I memorized the lyrics, learned the bluesy breakdowns, all snary with guitar solos, and hummed along with sax and brass. I can't say it helped me understand the songs any better, but I enjoyed them more, and even went so far as to try to expose my friends to this new music. They all listened mostly to Marky Mark and MC Hammer at the time, and after I played them Steely Dan, they regarded me as either brainwashed, stoned, or both. So, due to peer pressure, Steely Dan was left by the wayside. The only other interaction I had with their music prior to adulthood was when I heard "My Old School" playing on the radio, on my way down to move-in for my freshman year of college, and realized that my future alma mater was mentioned in the first chorus. It seemed to augur good things, but I almost immediately forgot about it.
Thankfully though, the summer after graduation, I found myself in a tight spot, and despite my extreme negligence towards their music in the preceding few years, Steely Dan provided me with a song that was uncannily appropriate. Long story, but basically my then-girlfriend had suddenly and violently turned into something more akin to the Operation game: she was hostile, all of our interactions were intensely nerve-wracking, and she sort of buzzed angrily when I touched her. The breakup was inevitable, and it came swiftly. She told me she had been cheating on me, had never really been in love with me, and wanted her pet goldfish back. I accepted the first two statements, but resolved to abduct her fish back to Pennsylvania with me, no matter what.
The following night, I packed up my stuff, gassed up my car, and went over to where she was staying to see her one more time before I left. I asked her for one last kiss, and, after a few oaths and epithets, got a little peck on the cheek. I jumped back in my car, and turned the key. The radio came on, one of the local classic rock stations, and Elliott Randall's incandescent first riff from Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years" came riding out of the speakers, carving up the air around me. It was perfect. I pulled out of the parking lot, with the girl's long, restive legs in my sideview mirror, and the sharp-edged groove of the song ringing out loudly into the hot air. At the time, I thought that the song had been there, on the radio, waiting for me; it fit the situation too well for it to be coincidence. "Reelin' in the Years" is music formed by the intersection of nostalgic regret and a kind of sweetly resigned disappointment, and that was exactly where I found myself at the time. I wanted to leave my mistakes behind me, and the best way to do that, it seemed, was to ride the feeling of that song all the way home- with the windows down and with a stolen, frightened goldfish, swimming anxiously in its bowl, strapped into the passenger's seat. The fish died, from the shock I think, somewhere near Havre de Grace.
['Reelin' In the Years' is from "Can't Buy A Thril", which you can buy here, and 'My Old School' is from "Countdown to Ecstasy", which you can buy right here]
Posted by Kevin at May 22, 2006 12:33 AM
Comments
Nice post--the bit about a kid wandering an adult party not understanding the conversations is an interesting metaphor for the Dan's high-tech jazz. The concept of maintaining ironic distance first became fashionable in the 1990s, but the Dan did it 20 years before--their obscure lyrics and odd musical choices succeeded at maintaining a certain ironic distance from their fans, and/or from the very idea of stardom itself.
Steely Dan is my favorite band, but even so, they don't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling like some of my other favorite bands do.
Posted by: jb at May 22, 2006 04:39 PM
I've been a little slow getting into these guys. I really dig 'Can't Buy a Thrill' and 'Pretzel Logic'.
Posted by: Eric Grubbs at May 23, 2006 03:50 PM
Hey JB, thanks for the kind words- and I agree that Steely Dan are not quite the kind of band whose music you can cuddle up to- their songs are definitely fun and interesting, but sometimes I feel like the Dan are best listened to alone...
And Eric- Pretzel Logic is awesome, definitely try to hit up either 'Aja' (all-around classic) or 'Gaucho' next (the LP produced to within an inch of its life), both are fantastic.
Posted by: Kevin at May 24, 2006 06:34 PM
goddamn, kevin.
i love that, seriously.
Posted by: emily at June 25, 2006 09:36 PM
Thanks, Emily! I'm glad you liked it- that little essay actually started with that Dan show that Clarke hosted a while back...hope you're doing well, thanks so much for reading the whole thing.
Posted by: Kevin at June 26, 2006 11:59 PM