Steely Dan Top 25: Countdown to the Scam
Five of my favorite songs from the middle of Steely Dan's oeuvre.
We’re continuing my countdown of my Top 25 favorite Steely Dan songs (and, from the great comments on the first entry in this series, this seems like a real hit!) with tracks from what I’ve deemed the “middle period” of Steely Dan’s run. These are songs on releases from Countdown to Ecstasy to The Royal Scam.
One quick note—remember that we are building to a final, ultimate Top 5 at the end of this series. Meaning if I’ve left songs off, they might pop up in my big, all-time top 5 Steely Dan songs post.
“Razor Boy”
If I had to rank my favorite Steely Dan albums, Countdown to Ecstasy might be near the bottom. Compared to the other albums, I’m not clamoring to return to those songs as frequently as others. That said, “Razor Boy” is a weird, almost soft song that I find myself listening to quite a bit.
The Genius annotation of the song describes it “captur[ing] a sense of longing, uncertainty, and the bittersweet nature of existence,” which both comes through the music and the lyrics. You also have that trademark contrast of the music, which is light and almost marimba-inflected, and lyrics that tell a story of some darkness and pain. There’s also some of that trademark, standard Steely Dan dark sarcasm:
Will you still have a song to sing
When the razor boy comes
And takes your fancy things away?
Will you still be singing it
On that cold and windy day?
That’s pretty… biting, even mean while being all wrapped up in this soft, jazzy musical package, which makes it an archetypal Steely Dan track.
“Barrytown”
Pretzel Logic was, for a stretch, my favorite Steely Dan album. It strikes a balance of being on the more conventional side when it comes to pop/rock music, but it has some of the eccentricities that we associate with this group. I already wrote about my appreciation for “Any Major Dude,” but “Barrytown” is another track that made that one of my preferred albums. It’s also, in appropriate Steely Dan fashion, a song that sounds very conventional but that tells a strange story. Specifically, one that references a small town/hamlet in New York that’s associated with the Moonies? And out of all that, and making a comment on the prejudices people hold, Fagen and Becker craft a quaint little pop song? Of course they do.
It’s another of the songs that I first encountered on that Me, Myself, and Irene soundtrack with a version performed by Ben Folds Five.
It’s also referenced in the novel version of High Fidelity as one of the names of Barry’s bands (which is of great amusement to the protagonist, Rob).
“Parker’s Band”
The second song I’m talking about here from Pretzel Logic, which is a fun tour through Charlie Parker’s musical history in a song. As an avid Kerouac reader/Beat Generation aficionado, it’s hard to not love that. It speaks to how Fagen and Becker have such a clear foot in that pre-rock world that they would write a song like this about Charlie Parker rather than… Bob Dylan or some figure who would be more “contemporary” to 1970s album listeners.
Savoy sides presents a new saxophone sensation
It's Parker's band with a smooth style of syncopation
Kansas city born and growing, you won't believe what the boys are blowin'
When I first heard and read about this song, way back when, it was maybe the first time I’d ever heard of two drummers being used on one song. They definitely get their money’s worth with those two drummers and it gives the song a bop-inflected drive.
One of those drummers on “Parker’s Band” was Jeff Porcaro, who would go on to be in Toto. There’s also former Doobie Brother Skunk Baxter on guitar on all the songs on Pretzel Logic too.
“Bad Sneakers”
Katy Lied is a bit like Countdown to Ecstasy in that they’re the albums I tend to overlook or move past when I’m looking for a Steely Dan. “Bad Sneakers,” which reflects the shift from the East coast to Los Angeles and taking a more West Coast-centric view of things, is one that I’ve never overlooked.
I think it’s a bit like “Razor Boy” in that it has a kind of wistfulness or longing for something; in this case, it’s for what was left behind and the life in the East.
There’s a surprising amount of emotional resonance and despair in this song all wrapped in a sound that’s smooth and easy going. It’s a great chorus that will get stuck in your head for a day or two. But when you scratch underneath the surface, the song certainly isn’t that light.
Michael McDonald, who I’ll be talking much more about in subsequent entries in this series. starts his run of background vocals on this album too.
“Haitian Divorce”
There are going to be a few more songs later in this series from The Royal Scam, but “Haitian Divorce” is the first one I’ll be writing about.
I know I’m repeating myself, but the juxtaposition of the music and the lyrical content is fascinating. The music is so clean and smooth with crisp drumming and the use of that wah-wah effect on the guitar sound. It sounds like something you might hear a band play at some tropical resort where people “drink… Zombie[s] from the coco shell.” It sounds so glib and disposable. As a tiki drink aficionado, I really enjoy the reference to the Zombie cocktail in the song too.
But then you dig into the lyrics, it’s about a couple falling out of love and the wife traveling to Haiti to get a divorce without her spouse’s consent. There, she dances with and has a one night stand with someone that leaves her pregnant for her return to the United States? It doesn’t seem like the kind of story that would go with the sound that Fagen and Becker created on “Haitian Divorce” and yet here we are…
The next entry in this series will be five of my favorite songs from Aja and Gaucho (two real heavy hitters in the Dan catalogue).
Fagen and Becker took a lot of chances with what they did- now everyone plays it safe.
I’m a big fan of the “Katy Lied” album — it’s underrated! Phil Woods’s alto solo in “Dr. Wu” alone is worth the price of admission, but there are many other joys. More “Katy Lied,” Mister Deejay!