Steely Dan‘s exceptional album Katie Lied (their fourth, in 1975) was released during the second half of my high-school graduation year (it seems like another lifetime…). It was the second Dan album I’d heard (after their 1972 debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill; for some reason I’d missed Countdown to Ecstasy (arguably their best album) and Pretzel Logic). Katie Lied amazed me at the time and, through the years, I’ve learned to appreciate the album’s depths even more. Several notable musicians appear on the credits, including Rick Derringer and Larry Carlton on guitars, and Phil Wood on tenor sax. I just listened to the CD; the sound is a bit muddy, so I’ve decided to buy the remastered version (are you listening Santa?). Today, three of the songs caught my attention:
Black Friday. While Walter Becker and Donald Fagan were on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz NPR show (the album was released in 2005), Fagan confirmed that the song’s meaning is steeped in the miasma of the great depression (some have suggested that it gazed into the future).
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Doctor Wu. According to Brian Sweet (from his 1994 book, Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years), Fagen said that the song is about a love/dope triangle involving a girl who is attracted to someone with a dangerous lifestyle. The dope habit is personified as Dr. Wu (Are you with me Doctor Wu?/Are you really just a shadow/of the man that I once knew?). The girl comes under the domination of someone else and the previous relationship is ended or altered. The album’s title is echoed in the lyrics:
I went searching for the song
You used to sing to me …
Katy lies;
You could see it in her eyes
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Your Gold Teeth II. Among other things, this song is an echo of my favourite Dan song (Your Gold Teeth, a seven-minute tribute to hard bop from Countdown to Ecstasy):
Who are these children
Who scheme and run wild?
Who speak with their wings
And the way that they smile?
What are the secrets
They trace in the sky?
And why do you tremble
Each time they ride by?
For me, the album assembles a cloud of nostalgia, but it brings new impressions each time I listen.
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db johnston
almost falling 