The Steely Dan Dictionary: Your Guide to the Lyrics of Rock’s Most Abstruse Band

17 Feb 2017 3 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts

dan

Ever wondered what a bodhisattva is? Or how to gaslight somebody? Then this website is for you! You’re looking at an A-Z glossary of over 120 obscure words, people and places — all taken from the lyrics of Steely Dan songs.

The creative genii behind Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) have long been fond of peppering their lyrics with arcane literary and cultural references, the meaning of which can be murky at best (given the duo’s legendary reticence). After searching in vain for an explanatory lexicon, I decided to create my own — the result being this website, which was first launched in June 2000.

Some examples from the site:

Annandale
California / Tumbles into the sea / That’ll be the day I go / Back to Annandale
Song: My Old School   Album: Countdown to Ecstasy
Most notable as the location of Bard College, where Donald Fagen and Walter Becker first met while attending college there in the late 1960s

Piaster is also the name of the fractional currency used by several countries today, including Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Syria.

Jungle Jim
Crashing the backboard / He’s Jungle Jim again
Song: Glamour Profession   Album:Gaucho

Nickname of Jim Loscutoff (1930-2015), a former basketball player for the Boston Celtics.

Born in San Francisco, Jim’s NBA career lasted from 1955-1964 as a forward on the legendary Bill Russell-led Celtics team, which won 8 consecutive NBA Championships.

Jungle Jim was never a high scorer but had a reputation for scooping up any rebounds Bill Russell didn’t retrieve, hence “crashing the backboard”.

Black Cow
Drink your big black cow / And get out of here
Song: Black Cow   Album:Aja

A type of soda.

Depending on who you ask, a true black cow consists of either Coke or root beer mixed with either milk or ice cream (with optional chocolate sauce). There’s even an alcoholic version, containing Grand Marnier and cold coffee.

Doctor Wu
Are you with me Doctor Wu / Are you really just a shadow / Of the man that I once knew
Song: Doctor Wu   Album: Katy Lied

Dr. Jing Nuan Wu (1933-2002), an acupuncturist and artist formerly based in Washington D.C.

Emigrated from China to the United States at a young age and graduated from Harvard to become a Wall Street venture capitalist, finally setting up a Taoist clinic in Washington in 1973.

Apparently he helped one of the band to overcome drug addiction in the mid-70s, hence the lyrical tribute.

http://steelydandictionary.com/

 

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…and one reference that is missing from the site (via everything2.com):

Cobalt Cigarettes
Specific cigarette type smoked by the protagonist of the Steely Dan song “King of the World,” which is about life after a nuclear war. Loosely based on the film “Life in the Year Zero,” the song concerns a lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust spending his time driving through the ruins of his home town and searching the airwaves with his HAM radio for any signs of survivors.
The cigarettes themselves are very deadly (forms of cobalt are highly radioactive) and the smoking of them by the main character is meant as a commentary on his current state and lack of hope. Heard in the far backround of this song is Walter Becker mumbling scary little phrases such as, “I think my face is on fire.”
(Thanks Karen Gottschall and Bob Cyphers)

Was ‘Weird Al’ the Real Star all Along?

17 Feb 2017 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

al

(via Washington Post) Story by Geoff Edgers

LOS ANGELES — One day last summer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, on break from “Hamilton,” stopped by neighbor Jimmy Fallon’s house in the Hamptons. They both love music and Fallon has a listening room in the basement, so it wasn’t long before they were downstairs sharing another passion: “Weird Al” Yankovic.

“I said, ‘Do you know “Polka Party!”?’ ” Fallon says. “He’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I know it word for word.’ ”

Fallon threw Yankovic’s 1986 record on the turntable, and the Broadway phenomenon and the late-night TV star sang along to an accordion-driven medley that covers 12 songs in three minutes, from Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.”

“Picture Jimmy Fallon and I sitting in a basement laughing our asses off singing, ‘I’m gonna keep my baby, keep my baby, keep my baby,’ ” Miranda says.

“We were crying, laughing and singing,” Fallon says.

They’re not alone…

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2017/02/16/how-weird-al-eclipsed-almost-every-star-he-ever-parodied/

Every Grammy-winning Record of the Year

08 Feb 2017 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

grammy-1

(via msn entertainment)

Grammy Record of the Year, one of the most prestigious musical awards, honors artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence.

For 2017, Adele, Beyoncé, Lukas Graham, Twenty One Pilots and Rihanna have received the nomination, and one of them will win the award on Feb. 12. Let’s take a look at the songs that have won the honor in the past.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/music/grammy/every-grammy-winning-record-of-the-year/ss-AAmeGjE?ocid=spartanntp

Paul McCartney’s “Ram” Reconsidered

28 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

ram

(via CultureSonar) by Ken Hymes

In early 1971, with The Beatles involved in some bitter legal disputes with each other and with their own management, Paul McCartney recorded Ram with his wife Linda and three hired guns, guitarists David Spinozza and Hugh McCracken, and drummer Denny Seiwell. The album was eviscerated by critics on its release, with Jon Landau and Robert Christgau particularly vicious in their assault on both the album and McCartney’s general reputation relative to John Lennon. Some writers were grudgingly complimentary about McCartney’s sheer mastery of the craft of production, but almost no one could be heard to support the material itself.

There has certainly been a reappraisal, with some glimmering that Ram represents not a failure to live up to The Beatles (or to the expectations of Village Voice writers), but rather a beginning of something new. Perhaps AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine is correct that “in retrospect it looks like nothing so much as the first indie pop album, a record that celebrates small pleasures with big melodies.”

Read more: http://www.culturesonar.com/ram-paul-mccartney/

“More Barn!”…Neil Young Finally Confirms The Most Popular Legend About Him

25 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

UNSPECIFIED - JANUARY 01: Photo of Neil Young (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

(via Huffington Post) by Todd Van Lulling

Graham Nash — of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — has a story about his friend, Neil Young, that has been almost too perfect to believe for nearly three decades.

As the myth goes, Nash was at Young’s ranch just south of San Francisco when Young asked him if he wanted to hear something. (That something would become Young’s now famous 1972 “Harvest” album, which features the track “Heart of Gold.”) Nash, of course, said yes and suggested going into Young’s studio. That wasn’t Young’s plan.

“He said, ‘Get into the rowboat,’” Nash explained on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2013. “I said, ‘Get into the rowboat?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go out into the middle of the lake.’”

The two row out on the lake, with Nash assuming Young brought a cassette player and headphones with him.

“Oh, no,” said Nash on NPR. “He has his entire house as the left speaker and his entire barn as the right speaker. And I heard ‘Harvest’ coming out of these two incredibly large loud speakers louder than hell. It was unbelievable. Elliot Mazer, who produced Neil, produced ‘Harvest,’ came down to the shore of the lake and he shouted out to Neil, ‘How was that, Neil?’”

The best part is Young’s apparent response to the situation. As Nash explained, “I swear to God, Neil Young shouted back, ‘More barn!’”

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neil-young-more-barn_us_576927bae4b015db1bca809f?

Donnie and Joe Emerson, and the most moving lost record of the 70s

13 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

emerson

(via the guardian)

Among the great “what-ifs” of the recording industry, it has to be among the most unlikely: what if a farmer had never bought a tractor?

Fruitland, Washington has a population of 751. There are no zeros missing from the end of that number. This tiny rural town is where Donnie and Joe Emerson grew up, living a teenhood driven by the demands of the family’s 1,600-acre farm.

emerson-2

As Donnie, says, during the summer in particular, “there wasn’t no messing around. You don’t run that type of farm by sitting around.”

Their life-changing moment came in the summer of 1978 when their father, Don Sr, bought a tractor that came with a built-in AM-FM radio. It was this that led, not so indirectly, to one of the greatest forgotten records of the decade, Dreamin’ Wild…

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/28/donnie-joe-emerson-dreamin-wild

Pitchfork‘s review of Dreamin’ Wild:

Originally released in 1979, only to sit in the teenaged Emerson brothers’ home studio for decades, Donnie and Joe’s sole record showcases a prodigal talent for blue-eyed soul and landlocked yacht rock that’s only just getting its dues…

Read more: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16841-dreamin-wild/

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