They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues
- Steely Dan/Deacon Blues
Hey Walter, you never knew me. I saw you many times in person performing but never knew you.
I did know your music though. I just wanted to say thanks. It made my life better. It made my life different. I know you and the great Donald Fagen both worked to create that music so this gratitude goes out to your partner as well.
Your handiwork helped me craft a much needed prism with which to view the world.
All art is in the eye of the beholder, but I find Steely Dan’s music to be profoundly important and romantic in the 19th century sense of the word. It finds beauty in human frailty, in loving earnestly, recklessly with vulnerability, madness and kindness. To bear the full brunt of humanity’s selfish brutality and to come out the other side, damaged but improved, with a sense of humor, a touch of grace and the quiet dignity in comprehending the futility of it all.
A lot of people don’t get Steely Dan. And that’s ok. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
For me though, it was transformative.
Times are hard
You’re afraid to pay the fee
So you find yourself somebody
Who can do the job for free
- Steely Dan/Dirty Work
I first really got into the Dan in late 2004. I was in a very very dark place. By chance, I heard the song Dirty Work from their first album Can’t Buy a Thrill on a classic rock station. I stopped. It landed. It hit me.
I’m a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah
I don’t want to do your dirty work no more
- Steely Dan/Dirty Work
I was tired of doing the dirty work of others as well. To push down the pain and shame of it, I had become quite a wreck. I was binge eating, binge drinking, binge working, binge gambling. I was a mess.
But, perhaps I didn’t have to be. Doing the dirty work of others was my choice. I could just choose not to do it and take the heat for that decision. It couldn’t get much worse.
Maybe Steely Dan had more things to teach me?
I bought the album Can’t Buy a Thrill on CD. I listened on repeat driving up to the Bay Area from LA to visit my pal Matt and his lovely wife Kerry for New Year’s 2005. I also listened to it on repeat driving back down to LA.
I found much wisdom there. This may sound nuts to the uninitiated, but I used Steely Dan as a tool to help craft a better life.
They looked at the same twisted, sad, tragic world I experienced and saw something that I didn’t see. They saw beauty and romance and irony. I looked closely, I imitated Walter and Donald the best I could.
Then, I saw it too.
The desperation and hope in the gambler’s eye as he puts his last dime in the slot machine and pulls. (Do It Again)
The frustration and melancholy and powerlessness in knowing that you are perfect for her and she is perfect for you and yet you may leave this earth without ever knowing each other. (Rikki Don’t Lose That Number)
The wonderment and isolation of simultaneously being insider and outsider, observer and participant in the odd presentational extravagance of the Hollywood scene. (Aja)
The hidden beauty and dignity of losing. Losers are free from the stifling expectations of society. Losers get to “work the saxophone” and play just what they feel. “Drink scotch whisky all night long, and die behind the wheel.” (Deacon Blues)
I bought all their albums, listened to all of their songs. (Yes “all” of their songs.) I used their worldview to help me craft mine.
Their ideas (as I interpreted them) helped me formulate a better way to interpret and interact with the world.
Yes, that sounds insane. But, in my defense, a fair amount of human history is insane as well.
Throw out your gold teeth
And see how they roll
The answer they reveal
Life is unreal
- Steely Dan/Gold Teeth II
Walter, your music made sad things seem pretty. It made the terribly powerful seem terribly ridiculous and small.
In times of trouble, I found refuge in your admonition:
Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again
When the demon is at your door
In the morning he won’t be there no more.
Any major dude will tell you
- Steely Dan/Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Thank you Walter Becker for being a Major Dude in my life.