R.I.P. Walter Becker

"Turn That Heartbeat
Over Again" / Steely Dan

Jeez. I really did not expect this one to hit me so hard.

I've loved Steely Dan's music since 1972, my sophomore year in college, when I first heard the rocking syncopations of "Do It Again" on the local Springfield, Massachusetts, radio station; their snarky follow-up single, "Reelin' in the Years," only confirmed my faith. (How could I resist lyrics like "The weekends at the college never turned out like you planned / The things that pass for knowledge I can't understand")?

And I kinda hung in there for years and years, even when people whose opinion I respected dissed them as soft rockers. (Excuse me, Steely Dan were never soft rockers -- they were way too subversive and sophisticated for that.) I bought their 1972 debut album Can't Buy a Thrill, but I never saw them in concert, telling myself that they were principally a studio band and I didn't need to see them live. And for many of their peak years -- 1975 through 1977 -- I was living in England, divorced from my LP collection, being seduced by pub rock and punk rock.

We kept missing each other. After I moved back to the States in 1977 I bought Aja and loved its lush swinging groove, even though by then I was mainly into the neuroticisms of the Talking Heads and the B-52s and Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. So many bands, so little time. Steely Dan disappeared from the scene throughout the 80s (read the Becker obits to find out why), and in the 90s, when they started touring again, I was Otherwise Engaged.

I suppose things would have been different if I'd ever lucked into a Steely Dan fan base, the way I connected with fans of the Kinks, Graham Parker, Marshall Crenshaw, and Nick Lowe. But that never happened. And so here I am in 2017, regretting Walter Becker's death at age 67, and also feeling guilty as hell that I never paid this band as much love as I felt for them.

I'm a fan of cryptic crosswords, and for me, every Steely Dan song is a cryptic crossword. "Turn That Heartbeat" starts out sounding like a heist caper ("With stocking face / I bought a gun") but the chorus lays on explicit religious references ("Oh Jesus / Oh Michael") and protestations of innocence ("You know my reputation / For playing a good clean game").  Suddenly we're in a barroom, with Casablanca references -- "My poison's named, you know my brand /  So please make mine a double, Sam." And what are we supposed to do with a lyric like "This highway runs from Paraguay"? Drugs, politics, and all sorts of nefarious doings are on the line.

And who the hell is William Wright, whose corpse appears in verse three? Google it and you'll only be more confused. But don't get hung up on that -- the thing is, he's dead, and "zombie see and zombie do."

But here's the thing. This is a track of undeniable richness, with fat vocal harmonies, disturbing chord progressions, teasing Fagan keyboard fills, and a niggling sense of there being more behind the lyrics. In this era, rock music was all about the albums, not the singles (though Steely Dan subversively co-opted enough pop hooks to hit the singles charts with regularity). We were supposed to be sitting in our dorm rooms, puzzling over the references. And we did.

So what echoes in my brain pan about this song, which I've been listening to for 45 years? With my Massachusetts frame of reference, I can't help but love the verse 1 line "And they closed the package store." But as time goes by, I'm drawn to the chorus line "Turn the light off / Keep your shirt on / Cry a jag on me." How seductive is that, highlighted by the inverted grammar around "crying jag"?

And sometimes, my heart of hearts simply cries out "Oh Jesus / Oh Michael!" Can't explain that. It just is.

I have no vested interest in solving these songs for you folks. Hey, Steely Dan was always about more than the sum of its parts. But in honor of Walter Becker, I implore you to surf around and listen to more of their astonishingly brilliant tracks. And maybe begin to fathom the subversive power of their music . . . .

52 GIRLS

"Miss Marlene" / Donald Fagen

Fast forward 28 years, and here's the return of Steely Dan -- or at least the keyboard half, Donald Fagen -- still hitting that jazz-rock groove. If Fagen's 2012 album Sunken Condos doesn't equal classic Steely Dan on every track, when it does, it's something fine indeed. The cool jazz sound and oddball lyrics score some intellectual sophistication, but before we get too pretentious, the song's rock guts kick in. Hipster irony? Oh, folks, we are way beyond that here.

And really, we just don't have enough songs about bowling, do we?

I'm immediately swept along by the song's syncopated charm, its plush textures, the slight blurt of a horn section, the antiphonal electric guitar, those slinky chord changes. The chorus sets the scene in some Big Lebowski universe set at the local bowling lanes. "Can’t you hear the balls rumble? / Can’t you hear the balls rumble  / Miss Marlene / We’re still bowling / Every Saturday night." Dig how he swells into the unresolved chord of "ruuummm-ble," willing the chord to resolve. I imagine him standing at the end of the lane, tilting to the side, urging his ball to veer into a better trajectory.

In verse after verse he verbally riffs with the conceit, filling in all sorts of esoteric bowling-specific references -- "when she release the red ball," "The ball would ride a moonbeam down the inside line," "You were throwin' back hurricanes," and my personal favorite, "We drop the seven-ten." In my limited bowling career, I have never been able to clear that split between the 7 pin and the 10 pin, but I've got the lingo if nothing else.

There isn't much plot here, but it's such a particular, specific slice of life, I'm totally absorbed. It's a busy social milieu, with back-up singers oozing into the ends of phrases, the clutter of various instruments going their various directions, only the percussion track keeping steady like a ball rolling down the alley. I could swear I hear the murmuring voices at the bar, the machines in the arcade, the clatter of the ball return.

Fagen does give us glimpses of the girl in the picture -- rolling like a pro in 2007 when she was just seventeen, "With the long skinny legs, child / And your hoop earrings." (Prime pool hall skank or wild child free spirit? You decide.) Then the denouement in the sixth verse: "You ran into the dark street / At University Place / The cab came up so fast that / We saw your laughin' face." I know those streets and their skinny-jean clientele. I'm with her trying to grab that cab.

This is not a classic pop song; it does not make a major statement. Fagen probably thought up the lyrics in five minutes on a bowling evening, humming them under his breath as he waited for the automatic ball return. But I'm in no mood to quibble. Just sink into that fat instrumentation and let it roll.

11 DOWN, 41 TO GO

52 GIRLS

"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" / Steely Dan

1974. I'm in college, no longer listening to my parents' car AM radio, thrown upon the mercies of college FM, which has its own weird orthodoxy. But every once in a while I tune into the local AM station and hear -- between "Time In a Bottle" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" -- something strange and wonderful. Plenty of cheesy jazz-rock imitators came along later to muck up the waters, but these guys invented the sound -- the dense aural environment, underlaid with a slapping, commanding groove.

Calling Dr. Becker! Calling Dr. Fagen! Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the two mad scientists behind Steely Dan, crafted that sound and welded to it oddball lyrics with a distinctly snarky take on modern life. And snarky was just exactly what I needed to hear in those days.  "Reeling In the Years," "Do It Again," "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" -- the music was compelling, the songs themselves rather disturbing. But hey, I was in college -- disturbing was what I ate for breakfast back then.

So what's the story here? To a spooky samba beat, the singer's pleading with a girl -- I don't even think a girlfriend, just someone he briefly dated. Or whatever. There's certainly a whiff of desperation in the way he reminds her of "our little wild time" and going "out driving on Slow Hand Row" (that's some evocative name for a lover's lane). Properly speaking, I'm not sure that Rikki even remembers this guy at first, not if he has to remind her of their connection.

Now, in college I assumed that the number she wasn't supposed to lose was his. I pictured something scrawled on a matchbook or a cocktail napkin; I actually had a few of those in those days. If they had been steadies, she'd have had his phone number on speed dial -- but instead he's pleading with her "Rikki don't lose that number."

It was a different era, that's for sure. You didn't text somebody, you couldn't email them -- if you wanted to communicate you had to use the telephone, and chances were they wouldn't even be home to pick up. (This is such a Neanderthal era, we didn't even have answering machines -- if you called when they weren't home you just had to try again later.) It took effort.

"You don't want to call nobody else," he adds, entreating her -- because if she doesn't call, he'll never hear from her again. "Send it off in a letter to yourself" (mnemonic tips from Dr. Becker!). Chords falter and diminish as he speculates, "You might use it if you feel better / When you get home . . . " He knows she won't, but a guy can hope, can't he?  ("And you might have a change of heart . . . " the line wanders upward, followed by a twiddle of piano).

But things are not well in Rikki's world. That ominous ticking bass line, the ambiguous lyrics, the faintly scolding call-and-response of the chorus, they all spell trouble. At one time she wouldn't have phoned him for anything . . . but now maybe she will. Because --

Now, all these years later, I see a different scenario. It has occurred to me that it could be some other phone number -- an abortion doctor's, maybe? He's trying to help her out of a jam, but also keep himself from being implicated in that jam. He wants her to have a change of heart and get rid of the thing. After all, he only knows her from Slow Hand Road, and the unwritten rule is, whatever happens on Slow Hand Road stays on Slow Hand Road. Unless there are complications....

Maybe this is the scenario. I don't know for sure. All we hear is the dialogue between the two of them, and they know things we don't. It's like being thrown into a Raymond Carver short story, and scrambling to figure out what's going on.

One thing I knew for sure: if I was Rikki, I'd keep that number.  

10 DOWN, 42 to GO

"Miss Marlene" / Donald Fagen

Hijacked again!

You know, I considered Donald Fagen's 2012 CD Sunken Condos for my 2012 "best of" list. I regret to say, it did not make the cut. My long-time Steely Dan affection not withstanding, Donald Fagen minus Walter Becker loses that lyrics edge that always made the difference for me.

But a few weeks into the new year, I find that I cannot dismiss this album. The hooks are still there, the funky-jazz groove still compelling. So what if every song isn't equally good?  There's still a track or two of prime material here, and the more I listen to them, the more they possess my brain.

And hey, we just don't have enough songs about bowling, do we?



In the manner of all Steely Dan numbers, it took a little while for the chorus to sink in. And when it did, I was a little dumbfounded. Is this really what he's singing about? "Can’t you hear the balls rumble? / Can’t you hear the balls rumble  / Miss Marlene / We’re still bowling / Every Saturday night." Are we in some hipster Big Lebowski universe set at the local bowling lanes?

But after all, why not? And I'm soon swept along by the song's syncopated charm, its plush textures, those slinky chord changes.  Dig how he hangs on the unresolved chord of "ruuummm-ble," willing the chord to resolve. I imagine him standing at the end of the lane, tilting to the side, urging his ball to veer into a better trajectory.

In verse after verse he plays with the conceit, filling in all sorts of esoteric bowling-specific references -- "when she release the red ball," "The ball would ride a moonbeam," "down the inside line," "You were throwin' back hurricanes," and my personal favorite, "We drop the seven-ten." In my limited bowling career, I have never been able to clear that split between the 7 pin and the 10 pin, but I've got the lingo if nothing else.

There isn't much story here, though Fagen does give us glimpses of the girl in the picture -- "With the long skinny legs, child / And your hoop earrings." (Prime pool hall skank, if you ask me.). And then the denouement in the sixth verse: "You ran into the dark street / At University Place / The cab came up so fast that / We saw your laughin' face." I know those streets and their skinny-jean clientele. I'm with her trying to grab that cab.

This is not a classic pop song; it does not make a major statement. Fagen probably thought up the lyrics in five minutes on a bowling evening, humming them under his breath as he waited for the automatic ball return. But I'm in no mood to quibble. Just sink into that fat instrumentation and let it roll.   

Donald Fagen delivers a very specific brand of goods, and does so consistently, song after song, album after album. The cool jazz sound and oddball lyrics score us some intellectual sophistication, but before we get too cerebral and pretentious, the song's rock guts kick in.  Hipster irony? Oh, folks, we are way beyond that here.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 81-85

These five songs aren't quite guilty pleasures -- though they're all by artists that some rock snobs spurn. I'll defend them to the death, though, and not just because of nostalgia for the time in my life when I first heard them.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

81. "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" / Gerry & the Pacemakers (1964)
In 1964 we were all waiting to figure out who the next Beatles would be (turns out it was more of the Beatles). Even then, though, I'm pretty sure I knew it wouldn't be Gerry & the Pacemakers, despite the fact that they were also managed by Brian Epstein. Still, Gerry Marsden had a soulful pop voice, well suited to ballads, which soon replaced perky numbers like "How Do You Do It" in their repertoire. As a coda to the whole Merseybeat phenomenon, 1965's "Ferry Cross the Mersey" was poignant, even for us who'd never been to Liverpool. But my vote goes to "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," which came out a year earlier. It was the Pacemaker's first U.S. hit, and amid the tsunami of other British Beat bands frantically trying to cash in on the Beatles' US success, the tenderness of this song really stood out. I'll admit, that arrangement was totally movie-music schmaltz -- those quivering strings, that oboe counterpoint -- but still it comes off as totally sincere. I've read that Marsden wrote it after breaking up with his girlfriend; after she heard the song, apparently, they got back together and eventually married. I don't know if that story's true or not, but I desperately hope so. I remember watching Gerry sing this on Shindig, adoring his Liverpudlian vowels, taken in by his huge puppydog eyes. Ultimately, I just couldn't work up a crush on Gerry Marsden -- not with Paul McCartney around -- but this song still brings a lump to my throat.

82. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" / Steely Dan (1974)
You either get Steely Dan or you don't. Plenty of other cheesy jazz-rockers came along later to muck up the waters, but these guys invented the sound -- the dense aural environment, underlaid with a slapping, commanding groove. I loved Donald Fagan's nimble and intelligent keyboards, but what really spoke to me was Walter Becker's snarky lyrics. It's toss-up between this number and "Reeling in the Years" ("those weekends at the college never turned out like you planned / The things that pass for knowledge I don't understand"), but in the end I vote for this on the Spookiness Quotient -- that ominous ticking bass line, the faintly scolding lyrics, the lapidary call-and-response of the chorus. The singer's pleading with a girlfriend -- not even that, a girl he's briefly dated; with a whiff of desperation, he reminds her of "our little wild time" and going "out driving on Slow Hand Row" (that's some evocative name for a lover's lane). "Rikki don't lose that number," he entreats her -- I picture something scrawled on a matchbook or a cocktail napkin -- adding, "Send it off in a letter to yourself" (mnemonic tips from Dr. Becker!). Chords falter and diminish as he speculates, "You might use it if you feel better / When you get home . . . " He knows she won't, but a guy can hope, can't he? ("And you might have a change of heart . . . " the line wanders upward, followed by a twiddle of piano). I've always thought that it was his phone number he wanted her to keep, but just today it occurred to me that it could be something else -- an abortion doctor, maybe? Whatever. It's like being thrown into a Raymond Carver short story, and scrambling to figure out what's going on. One thing I knew for sure: if I was Rikki, I'd keep that number.

83. "Smooth Operator" / Sade (1985)
Jazz again -- really smooth jazz, in fact, sizzling over a Latin beat. When this song came out, mind you, we were in the throes of MTV's glory days of video; the sound is inextricable from the exotic vision of gorgeous Sade, with her skimmed-back hair and luscious red lips, poured into a cocktail dress. She was so poised, so reserved, so elegant -- more Audrey Hepburn than Debbie Harry -- I instinctively identified with her. The wary, wounded quality of her voice fit perfectly with this allusive story about a jet-set wheeler-dealer ("diamond life, lover boy"). Not that we get many details, though -- he could be a pimp, a drug lord, or James Bond for all we know. She doesn't trust him, and I'm guessing it's from bitter firsthand experience, as she croons: "A license to love, insurance to hold / Melts all your memories and change into gold / His eyes are like angels but his heart is cold." (Dig that icy quarter-note pause before "cold.") Sade's voice is like satin, like honey, her diction crisp, her phrasing sensuous yet delicate. Congas thump, maracas sussurate, a sax moans in the night. "Coast to coast, LA to Chicago, western male / Across the north and south to Key Largo, love for sale" -- it's so Eighties. But delicious.

[And by the way -- how cool is it that Sade's brand-new album just zoomed to number 1? The lady takes a decade off from performing, and her audience is right there waiting for her to return. No crazy promotional blitz (take note, Madonna and Lady Gaga), just a solidly crafted set of songs with her long-time loyal band. It proves that when the older audience respects and cares about an artist, they'll buy records in droves. So how come the record companies waste so much time and money only wooing the fickle youth market?]

84. "I Don't Want to Go Home" / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1976)
Warning: You won't find Bruce Springsteen anywhere on this list. But I've got nothing against Jersey boys -- and here's a selection to prove it.

85. "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" / Rod Stewart (1971) Hey, I didn't know better. And even if I did, I'd probably still fall for this gravelly debut by whiskey-voiced Rod Stewart.