The Steely Dan community rarely has books that speak of the things that make their music so different then most other music. I know that being a fan of their music, means that many other types of songs, especially popular songs, have this tendency to sound like simple, baby songs to me. I never really understood why, until I started talking with other fans and reading some of the information out there on the Internet. Unfortunately, there is not all that much written about the group. Brian Sweet wrote "Reelin' in the Years" back in the 90's and it is a good start for the novice fan. The one thing wrong with his book, is that there was absolutely no help given by the two themselves. A new book just published under an umbrella title of 33 1/3, contains an interview with Donald Fagen, regarding what by many is considered their pinnacle work, the album Aja.
The book comes in at just about 100 pages and is written more toward the person who has a music background but it deconstructs the 7 songs on the album and gives the reader a clue as to what is going on, lyrically and harmonically. Now cryptic lyrics are Steely Dan's stock in trade and Don Breithaupt doesn't even pretend to understand them all but he points out places where the lyric is enhanced by the chord and note progressions. A famous one for me that is not mentioned in this book is in the song My Old School. The line is "California tumbles into the sea". Immediately following this line the horns play a descending set of notes to a "splat" sounding note. A musical rendition of California falling into the sea. This one is not the only time that Steely Dan uses the music to either enhance or counter what is in the lyric itself.
I enjoyed the book and definitely recommend it.
It's on sale at Amazon. com
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