http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/staff_top_10/top-ten-obscure-steely-dan-lyrics.htm
By 1974’s superb Pretzel Logic, Becker and Fagen had dissolved the band, relying instead on crack studio musicians that could realize their increasingly complex compositions. As the disco-and-cocaine nightmare of the late ‘70s closed in on them, Becker and Fagen’s work began to darken, focusing on character studies of criminals, drug dealers, and cuckolded husbands. The classic rock of “Reelin’ in the Years” was replaced by the perfectionist jazz-pop of Aja and the brittle sonic obsessiveness of 1980’s Gaucho. FM listeners who could sing along to “My Old School,” even if they didn’t get the joke, were now faced with “singles” like “Deacon Blues,” the chorus of which reads as follows:
I’ll learn to work the saxophone
I’ll play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
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
This is one of the strangest lyrics ever put to wax—and it’s attached to a song that’s still played in elevators and department stores all across America. If you listen to “Deacon Blues” and only hear lite pop, the joke’s on you; with just a little close-listening, and the help of that English degree you never thought you’d use, it’s clear that “Deacon Blues” isn’t about a melancholy priest, but about a young hipster celebrating being a drunk, jazz-loving loser in an America that only cares about college football teams. And herein lies the greatness of Steely Dan: they wrote complex, mysterious songs disguised as catchy pop tunes. They’re both the most MOR and least MOR band ever. They’re accessible and subversive at the same time. If that isn’t the definition of great art, what is?
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