One Song - Steely Dan's "Peg" with Jon Benjamin

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

One Song Nation – won’t you smile for another episode? Because we know you’re gonna love it! On this episode of One Song, actor, comedian and musician Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers) joins Diallo and LUXXURY to break down one of Steely Dan’s most beloved, jazz-infused songs from 1977, “Peg.” They discuss the lengths the band’s core duo – Walter Becker and Donald Fagen – went to achieve their vision for this song and its album 'Aja' (it took 40 musicians!), and why it may be “one of the strangest hits to ever grace the mainstream.” (Pitchfork’s words, not ours.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rain. The Bridges I burn, light my way. Forever. I just love my job. Kids against now, the devil wears prada too. In theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. I have to say up top, there's a reason why we did not do a parody song this episode. I had the lyrics written.

I tried to learn this song. It is beyond my ability. And this is relevant because we've done whatever 58, 59 episodes. Most of the songs in our one song repertoire are performable because they're relatively like in the rock pop canon. I can't play them. This has got too much jazz in it. It's way too much jazz. I can't handle this much jazz.

The theme of today's episode is too much jazz. It's too much jazz. Too much jazz. Lectury Today's song is the biggest commercial release from this jazz and pop influence rock band who have sold 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. It's also one of their most popular and beloved songs. It peaked at number three in the U.S. and number five in the U.K., so the U.S. knew something more. We were just better than the U.S. slightly more fans.

Yeah. In 1978. And the song is on an album that has been certified platinum. That's right, Diallo. This band has refused to obey rock and pop conventions. They're known for weaving deceptively ironic lyrics with sophisticated jazz harmonies and arrangements and a meticulous production style. And this song, which Pitchfork called one of the strangest hits ever to grace the mainstream,

understatement. It just might be the perfect combination of all of those elements. It's one song, and that song is Peg by Steely Dan. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers interpolation. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. Just a quick heads up. We're going to have a special guest join us later in the show when we play the Stems. He's also released a jazz album, keeping with our theme, too much jazz. For now, we'll just say it's unlike any jazz you've ever heard. All right, let's start. Luxury. Before we dive into breaking down peg, we've got to get something out of the way. How did the band come up with the name Steely Dan? I've heard many stories, but I think you've got the truth. I mean, the funny thing, and another kind of thing about this episode is like, this may be,

In all of our history so far, the episode about the band for which the fans are the most steeped in lore, I think of any artists we've done. So there is sort of a canonical core that one must know. So people will know this song because it's a big hit song, but they may not know the lore. So I ask you Steeley-Han heads, you Danheads, to forgive what may be obvious to you. But it's not obvious to the rest of the world. For example, the band gets its name from a dildo, which is in a William Burroughs novel. and that's the true story. There it is. I will be representative of people who

have heard Peg and heard some of these other songs. We're going to get into it later. Most of my exposure was through hip-hop sampling with this band. I like Steely Dan. I don't know that I love Steely Dan. I think by the end of the episode, maybe you can make me love Steely Dan. And to those people,

I know at least one in my life who say, I don't like Steely Dan. I would beg you to stay tuned because I think that this episode might win you over. And if not, then you can just think in the comments. This feels like a perfect episode. in advance because we have proxies for both types of audience.

The heads and the like kind of on the fencers. And by the way, I'm not sure where our guest stands on all this. So we have a wild card in the mix. Our guests may be a fan, may dislike the band. I do not know. I don't know either. But I know that you're a fan, and I have to ask you right off the bat, what do Peg and

Steely Dan mean to you? Luxury. That's a great question. So Pei is a little bit of an outlier in the catalog, because it is by far their most kind of accessible commercial song, I would argue. Maybe one of their top five, certainly. And the rest of their catalog is wonderfully eclectic and obtuse, and we're going to dive into the irony and the, and the, obtuse. And sardonic. And sardonic is the word du jour. We're going to break out a lot of words today. By the way, the word sardonic popped into my head

immediately when I knew we were going to do this episode. And I realized I've been using it for years, but I never actually looked it up to find out what the actual definition is. And what did we find grimly ironic? Or grimly mocking. Grimly mocking. Sorry, that's it. Grimly mocking. I guess I use it as cynical or like smartly, you know, smartly humorous, but grimly, I didn't know there was a grimly there. I did not know there was a grimly there. So that puts kind of a darkness over the whole, a pallor over the whole thing. But once you start studying the lyrics of Peg and some of their songs, I was like, ooh, I never knew this was in here. And it's definitely grimly mocking. Absolutely appropriate. It can go dark. So the song, we've all heard on the radio for many years

because it's a huge hit and this record won Grammys. Personally speaking, I have to say I had a lot of resistance to Steely Dan in my punk years in being a teenager and just like liking so many other things. We'll talk about some of the convergence of the albums that came out around the same time. The 1977 albums I tended to prefer were like the sex pistols among other things in the clash. That's so interesting. I got to jump in here right now. The people who I align with in terms of hip-hop are the Steely Dan fans in my life. The people who I align with in rock circles are the Steely Dan haters. There's a line in the sand, my friends. There's a really. Absolutely a line. I mean, look, I grew up loving Steve Albini records, like the Pixies and the breeders and Nirvana and PJ Harvey, but he is famously a massive hater of Steely Dan. He uses it as shorthand for bad music.

Yeah. So anyway, it wasn't until I was in college my sophomore year and I met a girl and she was like a little older. She was like 25. I was like 1819. And we had this fun whirlwind romance. I will not name her. But Gigi, you know you're out there. And she told me. You're married now. He was playing Steely Dan, and I was like, Steely Dan, this is so corny. This is cringe. And she's like, you will understand when you grow up. When you become an adult, I think, were her exact words. Basically, put me in my place. She's like, you're 19 clearly, because you don't understand.

You need to have age in you to understand what's behind all of this music. So I think that's actually borne out to be the case. It took me a little while, but then I got into it. So let's get to know Steely Dan a little bit better. They're led by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan, but they're The band goes through lots of formations and band members over the years. Luxury, can you tell us about Steely Dan's origin story? Very brief history of the band.

So they meet in 1967 at Bard College in Annandale, which, again, all Steely Dan fans already know because it's the story of my old school. They talk about Annandale, blah, blah, blah. The story goes that Fagan was passing a cafe and overheard Becker playing guitar, and he just liked the sound of it. Quote, it sounded very professional and contemporary, and a little foreshadowing here, quote, like, you know, like a black person, really. Really. Okay. Okay. Let's get into the race stuff really early. That's relevant, man. It's part of this. It is a part of this because, and I, you know, you were telling me about this. There's a Norman Mailer article called The White Negro from 1957. Yeah. And he's basically making the case of, you know, white kids adopting, co-opting black culture and black music. What can you tell us about that Norman Mailer is?

I think not a lot of people understand or know that the history. of the origin of the word hipster really comes out of this idea of, I mean, literally it goes back to hepcats and jazz. It's a jazz expression. And beatnicks, right? And beatniks. They're all in the mix. The thing is, though, that this idea of finding white kids finding black culture and appropriating it, not necessarily in that we use the word appropriation. It's a very broad spectrum. But it just means that it brings some joy to them. And it's this sort of distancing from a mainstream culture that they don't feel a part of. So there's this alienated white, often male, but not always youth. This is what these guys are.

They're growing up in suburbia in the 50s. Oh, trust me, the women are there too. The women are there too. The alienation is gender-free. There's no gender line for alienation. No, exactly. Yeah, but these guys are growing up in the 50s, and for them there's this outsiderness.

But it is relevant that Fagan in particular is not just an outsider in suburbia in his mind, but he's a Jewish kid. There is a very strong affinity in this moment for, you know, we've got Lenny Bruce is of the same era. So there's this connection that's happening with, white people finding black culture and bringing it into more of a mainstream thing. But appropriation is a thin line. And I love this band. And this is not at all a slam. But like sometimes if you know that Donald Fagan likes Ray Charles a lot and then you see him performing with the

glasses on and the way he moves, it's like, oh, okay. He's definitely thinking in his mind, Ray Charles. He's sort of channeling it. But I think channeling this music and this vibe and this idea is a big part of what this band is consciously bringing to what they're thinking is an infiltration of a white radio world, a white rock radio world. So Fagan actually his autobiography is called eminent hipsters. And he talks about in that book how he grew up loving artist, quote, artists whose origins lie outside the mainstream or who helps creatively exploit material from the margin. And I love that quote because that's what he's doing. He's bringing in the things that he loves, the sounds that he hears on the radio, the R&B, the Motown,

and he's bringing it into his music and him and Becker have a creative bond, which comes out of this love of this music and desire to do something really unusual with it. So one last thing I will say, because it's relevant, we will be talking about the irony and the sardonicness and the witty lyrics later. One thing I identify with with this band,

which I think a lot of fans of Steeley Dan identify with, is this sort of, I think, use of irony and knowingness as kind of a badge or even some armor. So I definitely, as I've been thinking about this band, I'm like, man, this is kind of me. Like I definitely, you know, I wear my band t-shirts and this and that. There's something about associating myself with knowingness about music. And we have this show and I have my videos. That connects me to this band because that's part of what you're experiencing with Steely Dan

is a history of music coming at you. It's very pleasurable. It's in a pop music format. But if you like, go beneath the surface, boy, there's a whole lot. There's the jazz harmony. There's all kinds of things going on that's a lot deeper. What you're saying is I can relate to because I feel like as a hip-hop head, like as a real hip-hop head, also you feel like it's not just hip-hop.

It's not just the MCs, but ironically, it's like the song that they sample. There's meaning in that choice, right? Absolutely. To talk to a real hip-hop head is almost like having the nerdyest conversation with somebody about comic books. It's like, well, you know, Wolverine debuts in The Incredible Hulk 181, you know, which is a fact. click it up. But you know, like, it's the same way with, like, hip-hop. It's just like, oh, you know, the first time Jay Z popped up on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a death jam album, he actually spelled the letter J and the letter Z, and it was the B-side to Mike Geronimo's, you know,

um, time to build, you know, LP. And so you're just like 12 inch. I know 12 inch. I know. So, but I mean, like, it's that level of like, I'm not just going to know the song. I'm going to know the intertextual lore, all the connections outside of the song itself. I'm going to know the song, the producer sampled. I'm going to know everything about that producer. So yes, that idea of like music nerddom, right, being a part of being the fandom. Right, and that knowledge is like integral to how they're making music. It's like

the music itself stands on its own. That's a really clear thing I want to make the case. But underneath it, you know there's a lot going on in those brains that made the music. Now, I know jazz is a much maligned. I feel like in the last 20 years, jazz has become maligned and I'm not down with y'all. I'm a huge jazz fan. I was raised by a jazz

man. My father owned about 1,200 albums in our house. Like, he had a lot of records. And, you know, so, so everything from Horace Silver to like the, the greats, the Coltrane's and the birds, I love jazz. When I hear this music, I don't know that I hear the jazz. Like, I, when I listen to the doors, I hear Ray Manzarek listening to jazz and translating it. I don't always hear the jazz here. But, you know, the 70s, especially the late 70s, is a weird time in jazz because after jazz fusion takes off, you know, you have this music that

nowadays would almost be called like smooth jazz, which is definitely pejorative. Yeah. But there is a jazz element here. Can you explain to us the jazz and the music theory that goes into Steely Dance music? Yeah, the question here is, when is jazz not jazz? And this band perfectly encapsulates it. It's a pop slash rock band with jazz elements. Might be the best simplest sentence I can make. Becker's got a great quote, which I think explains it well.

What we try to do is incorporate harmonic elements that were more sophisticated than rock and roll and still have it sound like rock and roll. In the simplest possible way, they're just using jazz harmonies in pop songs. And in the simplest, simplest way, they're just kind of throwing it in every now and then. Of course, this varies from song to song and album to album. But for this song in particular, this is a pop song with sort of rock elements, guitar solo, etc. But there's a bunch of jazz chords kind of in the Bindle and then in the front. And every now and then there's an unusual moment.

And your ear is interested. So it's interesting. But the interest comes from it being a very, what we would call like a spicy chord. It's got extensions. It's got ninths in it and flatted ninths and 11th and 13th, which just means that usually chords in rock and roll are mostly major and minor. And in jazz and blues, you might get a seventh, which gives a little bit of an ambiguity. It's not happy nor sad, major, minor. But these ninths and 11th and 13th in augmentation extensions give it a little more ambiguity, and it's more colors. So that is the simplest possible way I can talk about

what's a very, it's a field of study. You can go to Berkeley for a four-year program and get a lot more depth than what I just said about harmony. But in a nutshell, that's maybe the secret sauce that if you're not a musician and you're hearing something a little bit extra happening in the music of Steely Dan. It's this little stealth jazz, I would call it, subversive jazz. Thanks for explaining that for us. Now, if you can, walk us back to the early days of Steely Dan and take us down the path that leads us to Asia, the album that has Peg on it. Here's a real quick concise, succinct summary of the band. They meet in 1967, as I mentioned at Bard. They go through a series of incarnations. There's a bunch of demos you can find from the 6871 period where they're

figuring it out. They famously have a drummer named Chevy Chase in the band. That was back when they were called the Bad Rock Group. They become Brill Building writers, so they start learning about songwriting as a craft. And they also start learning about writing songs and having incredible musicians perform them. So this is their exposure to an idea that will be relevant later on. They're briefly staff writers at ABC Records and they're doing jingles. So again, they're exposed to this idea of other people performing their own music. What does that entail if you're a songwriter at ABC Records? What are you writing? Well, it's interesting because we've had a couple of episodes where there are, I think Maurice White we talked about was a staff writer as well at chess records,

I believe. When you sign to that label, they just have like a couple of guys who just sit around and they're like, write me a song about, you know, this girl that I like. It's probably similar to what maybe doesn't happen anymore, but once upon a time in Hollywood were there not people

that were writers that just on the lot? I mean, to the day, we're technically under contract with studio. Right, I think it's very similar. The work you do, your work for hire. When I came to L.A., I was in a publishing contract,

so everything I wrote was co-owned by an entity that tried to get the song used. So it's similar to that. The staff writers enabled the record label to have more ownership of the music, basically. So sometimes they'd solicit

they'd cover songs from other artists that weren't on their own label. This was a hedge on that bed in a way. The more songwriters you have, the more songs available. This is also in an era where repertoire was not, it wasn't a given that the bands would be writing and producing and recording their own material. So that's what they were doing. But not everybody did that before that.

And the Beatles doing it was kind of a new thing at the time. The Beatles and Dylan kind of changed the game with writing their own material like that. So they answer an ad that a gentleman called Danny Diaz puts in the paper. looking for a band. They join his band, and then they eventually take over the band. It's kind of similar

to the heart episode. That happened a little bit with the Wilson sisters, right? They ended up rebuilding it. They renamed the band, and they all moved to L.A. Then they kicked Danny out. Not yet.

Eventually, he will leave it, is true. So they rebuild the band. They moved to L.A., and they're a regular band for their first three records. They're putting out, Can't Buy a Thrill in 72, count down to Ecstasy 73.

And by the way, can't buy a thrill has one of my, sort of like one of those big hip-hop sampled songs. Okay. Just do it again. Love that. Love that song. Love that. Love that. Love it. So their first three records, they're a regular band.

They're touring. They've got five core members of the band. And then at a certain point, first of all, Becker and Fagan have essentially taken over the band. And they just hate touring. They're over it. They're sick of it. So they say, we're done. We're not touring anymore. They tell the label, the labels to their surprise, and glee, they're like, okay. And they become the session era begins with Katie Lide in 75 and Royal Scam

in 76. So leading up to this record, Asia, they've had these sort of phases. They were a regular band, and then they sort of invent this idea of being like, hey, we don't actually have to tour. I guess the Beatles... It went from being the bad rock band. Yeah. Just a regular band. It didn't invent the idea, by the way. The Beatles kind of did the same thing

now that I think about it. The Beatles were like, we're sick at touring too. They became a studio band 10 years earlier. So maybe that was their model. But that's what they do. and they just start to hone the perfectionism of getting every perfect sound. And we'll get into that one. We get into the stems a little later. And then we get Asia,

the record we are talking about today, and that's 1977. 77. Yeah, I know. That's nuts. I mean, let's think about the music that was being made when Steely Dan releases Asia in 1977.

So many eclectic. It's so eclective. Amazing records. Disco is huge. You got Donna Summers I Feel Love. Greatest song of all time. Your greatest song of all time. Beginning of electronic music in that, you know.

Yeah, but you also have, you know, and more like black R&B, you've got like Parliament, they have their number one single, Flashlight, punk is taking off with the clash and the Ramones. It's the rise of New Wave

with Elvis Costello and Talking Heads. Prague Rock, Kansas, Rush. You've got heavier rock with Kiss and ACDC. And then we come to two white guys making a jazz album.

Not just any jazz album, like universally considered one of the greatest produced jazz, you talk about smooth jazz, this is kind of a smooth jazz record. It's a record that for decades, maybe to this,

day that like, you know, mostly boomer guys, but like if you buy a new expensive high-fi system, it's the record you put on first to check the speakers. I remember the first time I listened to the Dr. Dre's The Chronic on a good sound system. I was like, ooh, that is, that is sonic separation. Like you can hear each part clean as a whistle. This is a great record for that too. And it sort of set the standard for pristineness and cleanliness and perfectionism. Meanwhile, we have like, never mind the bullocks, here's the sex pistols and this whole punk movement sort of going in the opposite direction. So it's a big year for lots of important records that are extremely different.

Absolutely. After the break, we'll dive into how Peg was made with our special guest. Stay tuned. Welcome back to One Song. As promised, we've got a special guest here to break down the stems with us. He's an actor, comedian, a hero of ours, a writer, producer, and a musician. You know his unmistakable voice from Archer, Bob's Burgers, Wet Hot American Summer, and much, much more.

And he recently released an album that we can't get enough of. It's a jazz project called The Jazz Project called The Jive. Jazz Daredevil. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for John Benjamin. John Benjamin. Here I am, guys. Here I am. Oh, no, that's not the voice I expected. So unexpected. Very surprising, man. Yeah, I've been putting on a voice.

Over 30 years. Wow, this is a big reveal. This is a big get. I have to do my characters all the time. When I'm bored drinking coffee, it's just me. You're actually running away from your natural voice. That's what pushed you into the field of doing the voices. Yes, right, right. reverse Michael Jackson actually, right?

Exactly. Michael, known for having a deep voice. Deep voice in real life. John, welcome to one song. Congrats on the album. We'll talk more about it later. But we're curious. I'm extremely genuinely curious. Do you like Steely Dan?

Steely Dan is like a complicated band for sure, right? I definitely didn't like them, I think, for a number of reasons when I was younger. I know they're divisive. but I think at some point it's sort of what like you were saying you give in they're like relented

but yeah they relented and I like them now a lot more than I used to why did you not like them and what changed well I think when I was like a teenager I was like I got into post punk music I started like when I was an early teen

liking disco so those two genres were like you know like very in opposition to like listening to and then my sister who's six years older probably introduced me

to Staley Danica she had I mean I think she would play real on in the years it feels like an older sibling album yeah that makes sense just just crying she would cry I mean she was just crying

for other reasons but I think it's interesting because post punk and disco both have sort of like a four on the floor is sort of like a driving beat right but going underneath everything else

yeah but then you get older and I guess you get a little more like listening to trying to listen to it in a more sophisticated way and realizing that they're combining all these genres as opposed to. Right. Yeah.

But at the time, also, my 13-year-old self, you're not dancing, really, to anything. You're not dancing to Steely Dan. And I did. I think what you were looking for. So disco was my first love in music. Was that from like just what was on in the air and on the radio? Yeah.

Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. That was also controversial because I grew up in, like, central Massachusetts, which was kind of like, you know, like, that was like hard. Disco. Hard rock country. Were you a social pariah because of your disco? If you didn't dress like Bruce Springsteen at that point, right? You were like, you were sent to a.

Military school. Reprogramming facility. Luxury, walk us through it. Tell us, how did the song Peg get made? All right. Well, the album Asia, which comes out in 1977, is mostly recorded in L.A. But this song happened to be recorded in New York with New York Session Guys

and we'll be talking about the session guy thing in a minute. Gotta give credit where it's due, Gary Katz is the producer, Bill Schnee is the engineer for tracking, and then Roger Nichols and Elliot Shiner are the engineers for the overdubts. Bill Shne? Bill Shne.

This is important stuff because this is a Grammy Award-winning record for its pristine, sophisticated, perfect sounding hi-fi audio music, which was engineered and created by these guys who dialed in that sound and it won them the best engineered recording. at the Grammy Award. That is the award everybody wants.

Sonic perfection. You don't want a Bill Shneeds. You want best engineer. Look, let's give these guys there, too. They're like universally revered in the industry. These are maybe the unsung heroes of this episode. We try to have them everyone. These are the ones when we talk about how this is the high-fi standard to this day,

when you get a new system, you put this record on or Pink Floyd or whatever it is. And who gets credit for them? We know who got the Grammy, but who gets credit for telling the man, hey, not that other stuff. We need it pristine. The engineers are the ones who are crafting the sound, as simple as that.

It's the simplest way to put it. So, as Walter Becker said, we wanted to get some of the tightness and precision that certain kinds of jazz had. We were just talking about it. He means the big band type. That influenced us in that kind of perfectionism. And then, you know,

pure neurotic drive took over at a certain point. And we ran on that pretty well for a few years. So this is the moment that the neurotic drive is taking over Becker and Fagan. And they are obsessed. trying to craft the perfect sound with these engineers, but importantly, they're bringing in lots of performers. So the two of them are Steely Dan forever, but the drummers, that is the most revolving seed imaginable. There's 40 total of 40 musicians on this record, almost a different drummer

on every song. It's basically Oasis. It's a lot going on. Two guys in a rotating cast of drummers. Rotating cast of characters. So different drummers on nearly every track, Victor Feldman is the only musician outside of Fagan and Becker who are on all the records, and he's on this one. We're going to talk about Chuck Rainey, the bass player in a little bit and give him his flowers. He's on most of the songs, and so is Larry Carlton. So they try to push back on this notion that they're just like got a rotating band by saying, quote, we actually have a band with a few substitutions, but it's really just the two of them and whoever suits the song.

So the story begins with Donald Fagan. He's home in Malibu in 1976, and he's working on a blues riff, as he says. And what that means is that the 12-bar blues is kind of the foundation for like rock and roll music. It's if you count it up, there's 12 total bars. And we've kind of lost that. You won't really hear a lot of 12-bars blues in the modern era. But this song is actually a stealth 12-bar blues. So that was an intention.

They're like, we're going to stealthily put a 12-bar blues on the radio, essentially. So they're adding some jazz harmony. The format, of course, is this 12-bar format. And then Becker comes up with a chorus, which, breaks that format a little bit. So we've got this 12-bar blues with a pop format and these kind of crazy jazz chords in the middle. So I just

wanted to set that up as we get into the stems because, as it says in the Asia liner notes, they like to refer to this, sardonically as a, quote, pantonal 13-bar blues with a chorus. Again, they're just like fucking with you. They're fucking with all of us. Also, sardonic is the word of the day. It is so. So every time we say sardonic,

take a drink. And remember that you're being mocked. These guys are mocking all of us. I agree. I agree. Yeah, I felt mocked by that. As you know, we're big fans of playing the stims here on the show. So let's start where we usually start with the drums. Luxury, play some drums for us. So I was talking about how the drums are this kind of rotating cast of characters. I found this really cool earlier recorded version of the song with a different drummer.

I just want to play that for you so you can hear kind of the transition. So this drum player. It's a little more disco. It's a little more disco. It's a little more disco. It's different. It's different. It's different. This kind of allows us to get in the heads of Becker and Fagan for a minute because they recorded this. So wait, what was that? That was a different drummer. This is, I think, recorded in L.A., and it's probably, now there's a lot of internet rabbit holes to go down. I'm going to go with, I think this is Steve Gadd. One of the greatest drummers of all time. Famously plays on Asia, the song Asia on its record. On that crazy.

That crazy outro drum fill. Steve Gad is a hero of many people because of that solo on that song. song on this record. But this is him playing this song and they're like, nah, we don't like this guy for this song. So they heard what we just heard and they're like, no, that's not it. Yeah. That's not it. Yeah. By the way, it should be pointed out, Steve Gad plays on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon, as well as late in the evening, one of my favorites. So the drummer who did make the cut is a gentleman called Rick Marada, who has played for Aretha Franklin, John Lennon, and dozens more. And let's listen to him now, playing the drums

on Peg. Starting with the intro. And I'll bring in some other stuff. And here's the break. And that's the feel they wanted. This little groove, which is what he plays the entire verse, just this.

And that's all that we need it. I'll add a little bass for fun. I could listen to that. I didn't want to stop that. I know. The bass is hard to turn away from. But I want to give him credit because that drum...

It's killer. It's killer. It's also disco, though, a little. It's totally disco. Totally disco, yes. On the opium. And I learned from my secret friend last night, who we talked about Sealy Dan, that Pegg was intentionally their disco tribute song.

Oh, really? I didn't know that. They were going to go on for disco on purpose. That Steve Gadd version sounded more disco to me. Yeah. And this version... It did to me too. Well, this version to me sounded a little more 80s.

It sounded a little more like Michael Jackson and Billie Jean era. So it's almost like considering this is well before. Billy Jean, it feels like... It feels more forward. I'm just reacting to what you're both saying, I hear the disco that you're hearing maybe in that the off be hi-hat because that's your classic disco thing

but what it doesn't have which disco generally has is the four on the floor. Yeah, that's true. And what's happening there is syncopation. I'll play the drums for you again. The syncopation and the kick drum brings it kind of back to more of a funk because they're syncopation purely for that reason. We've talked about the funk disco line many times on the show. That may be one place where it goes back from disco into funk

because of this, right? You hesitate on that boom-quette, boom-ket, instead of boom, damn, boom, that would make it pure disco. But this. Yeah. And by the way, I've got to make a point that that slightly open hi-hat, interestingly, Rick Marotta talks about how he had been, that was kind of a signature thing that he liked to do,

just opening the high-hat just a little bit. But until this recording, he had never heard that because the technology of engineering, he didn't have these three top-notch engineers. He had never heard on playback what he had been doing in quite the same way. So this is the first time that little subtle open hi-hat thing was recorded properly or audibly, I should say. And that's what you're picking up on, which gives it a little bit of a disco balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm also shocked that you didn't ask who my secret friend was. I was dying to know. But you just let it go. Who is your secret disco friend? I can't tell you. It's too late. You're like punishing me for not doing it in the moment? It's a new friend.

A new secret friend. How would you like me to ask you? Wait, I'm sorry. you're kind of bearing the lead here. Who is your secret friend and do they have a relationship with Steeley Dan? It's Donald Fagan. No, no, no, no. It's not not. I mean, you're wearing a hat that says jazz on it.

For all of our listeners, he is in the jazz community now between the Jazz Daredevil project. Yeah, they don't give you that hat. And the jazz hat he's wearing. So you might know them. I think he really did talk to Donald Fagan. I think this is one of the- I bumped him to him once. A multi-layered.

He did bump into him once. Yeah. I'm looking for information. I'm not going to say anymore. I'm not going to say anymore. I'm being punished on my own show. That's not when we became friends. Oh, shit, I just gave it away. I don't know Donald Fagan.

I did see him in the Strand bookstore once. That makes sense. That tracks. There's some other drums in here you wanted to mention. Yeah, we got to hear the chorus drums now because then he goes into this. It's kind of the same as the verse, isn't it? Oh, yeah, it's a little open hi-hats. Yeah.

More discos. Yeah, definitely. But is disco in the Casey and the Sunshine band way, not in the Donna Summer way? The kick makes all the difference. The fact that he's holding back on that four on the floor, he's sort of delaying that boom, boom, cat, it's not disco anymore.

Like, you need that if you're going to be on cocaine in 1977 at Studio 54. It doesn't work otherwise. It doesn't work otherwise. It's failure. That Code barely gets you high. Who's your friend? They did not play this at Studio 54, I imagine.

I don't imagine that they did. they put, it did not play peg. Yeah, it doesn't feel like they play it. And then listen, towards the end, we have the final choruses. He does switch it up a little bit and add the ride symbol. It's very satisfying to hear. And now I will share it with you. And that's what he did to win the gig over Steve Gad.

Steve Gadd lost the gig. But, you know, Ritha got the game. It didn't choose poorly because this is their big hit. This is the one that worked. This is the groove that worked. And it makes a difference. Like, it, look, we're going to talk about Chuck Rainey in the second. But like, it locks, I think, more to the baseline.

which is what they were looking for clearly. So the drums are the most important thing that's the lead and obsessed over, and they went through all these drummers for a reason because once you lock that in, everything else gets built on top of it. So it's not for nothing that they needed the drummer to be the right drummer,

playing the right part in the right way at the right tempo with the right groove, because at the end of the day, everything gets recorded on top of that and it has to map to it. So if it's not right, the bass won't be right and the guitar won't be right, and the keyboards won't be right.

So that's why the obsession is there. I'm a little bit taking their side, as it were. I just want to say it on the record. Not for Nothing. That would be a great name for our group. I love Not for Nothing. I love that expression. That hasn't been used.

It feels hard-boiled. Like a detective novel. Not for nothing. We always talk about making an EP together. Not for Nothing. Not for Nothing live at the Concord Pavilion. Ladies and gentlemen, not for nothing. I love it.

It reads. It sings. Let's talk about bass. Yeah, we'd love to hear some bass line. This is one of those groups where the baseline is always so prominent and we love it. Just a quick note about how these musical choices get made. So this is an important thing for people that don't know.

With session musicians, what you have are these pieces of paper in front of each musician called a chart. We think we've talked about that on a few other episodes, maybe the Shocker Khan, Earthwind and Fire here and there. But Larry Carlton needs some special props, another unsung hero. He's a guitar player who is on a lot of Steely Dan records. But his role in the band was to translate Donald and Walter's musical vision to these instrument players by literally determining what was in front of their faces, what is on the printed page in front

or the written page, I should say. So he would write out these charts. He'd be the liaison between what's in their brains and what they wanted, and then he would write down in the musicians' language what they're supposed to do. So the drummer and the bass player got the least of that. They were most free to do whatever they want. And Chuck Rainey, they kept bringing back. He's on six of the seven tracks on Asia and most Stelia in records because he would just nail it every time. He didn't need much. His chart would just show there's this many bars and these are your chords. Go for it. Play it something. He would also listen sometimes to the demo and I think on this song, Becker laid down a basic bass idea, but Rainey added to it and let's hear what he did.

Now if I bring the drums back, the way they lock, that's the key that downbeat the one, and then after the one you can kind of mess around. You could dance. You could dance to that. You could definitely do that. That's hell of dancing. Yeah, yeah. Is there an argument that you can't dance? I started to dance to that. You took the position that you can't dance to it. Did your friend say that you can dance to it? He would never, he would never say dance to that.

Who's your friend? Yeah, his name begins with an L. I am going to let this joke die. Where's my camera? You know who you are. There we go. L. By the way, did that last little moment, did that remind you of anything?

I'll play it for you as a loop, ready? What does that make you think of? Isn't that the De LaS soul sample? Oh, wow, yeah. and right up to bat. Is it a Daisy A.D. You know what's funny is that the way that the, the organ was coming in? Yeah, there's Rhodes and Piano.

Roads was coming in. It actually reminded me of music sounds better with you by Star Dux. Play that again? You're absolutely right. Faith by Shaka-Hun. A major version of that. It's major. sounds so awkward in major. It's too happy.

This is a very happy song, and when we get to the lyrics, I'll talk about why it's actually not a happy song at all. But that's just a tease. Let's keep going. Okay, so there's a real fun anecdote. Chuck Rainey talks about how when Walter and Donald asked him to play the baseline, they said, please, whatever you do, please, don't pop and slap. Don't do that that kind of funky, at the time it would have been Stanley Clark. They don't want it, boom, pop, boom, boom. Don't do that. To them, that just wasn't what they were hearing in their heads. But Chuck really wanted to do that. So he tells the story where he apparently dips his chair down and puts up a barrier and turns around in his chair

so they can't see him. And then he does what he wanted. He does the popping and I'll play it for you now. You'll hear it. It's perfect. You can't not do it. But it was stealthily done. And he in his telling, they didn't notice till later, they're like, all right, we'll let you get away with it this time. It's called hiding the slap. It's the old hiding the slap. Yeah. Yeah. Any of the New York session. A lot of people had to do that. the shame of the slap. The slab wasn't cool back then. Yeah, yeah.

The slap and the pop. Well, here's the slap and pop in the chorus. Oh, my God. What? God, I just want to listen to this all day. What a maestro. I'm in fucking agony hearing that. Yeah, why is it painful?

It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. Every note is delicious. Just another example, by the way, in this section of how they're like kind of throwing in little unexpected, not usually in pop things is that there's like a thursday. against four feel there. I'll play it with the drums.

One, two, three. It's basically a little triplet, and then we get back into it. So they're just freshening up your brain before you go right back to the repeated thing you've heard a few times. Masterful pop craftsmanship is what that is. Let's just hear how it's so satisfying

at the very end where that bass and that ride come together and to take us out to the end of the song, we hear this. Sometimes on the show, I just don't want to stop music. I'm sorry. Well, we know that you're a drummer, but you're also an excellent bassist. I know Chuck Rainey.

I can't, yeah, I don't know. But thank you. No, but I mean, seriously. Where are you going with that compliment, though? Keep going. I enjoyed it. But I agree. I think that the bass makes this song.

But we want to hear some of the guitar. Let's get into that guitar. Maybe some of the rose, because we just mentioned the rose. It's kind of not for nothing vibe, right? You scoff now. Yeah, well. Your sardonic scoffer over here. Yeah, you're going to show me.

We invited the Sardonic Scoffice. I mean, I hope you do. That's what the bass is doing. What is the guitar doing? All right, well, this song has a pretty famous story about the guitar. But there's actually two different guitar players. The rhythm guitar is by Steve Kahn. He's doing some really basic open chords in the intro and then just a real rhythmic riff,

which is really gratifying by itself. And then when you add it to what we've been hearing, it's doubly gratifying. Let's start with that. And then we'll talk about that solo and the story behind it. Steve Kahn, rhythm guitar. In the mix, it's more like this with drums. Real basic. It's just in the left channel.

It's not stereo. Just really tasty little melody that he's playing throughout the entire song. Delicious. He's hungry right now. He's very hungry right now. He's really hungry. I'm very hungry right now. So it may find its way into my language.

It does that all through the verse. And then in the chorus, he does this cute. I put in my notes, Slidy thing. So here's the slighty chorus. Now, okay, when I play that, I have to go back for a second. We talked about humor earlier. I do need to mention at this point that a big part of Donald and Walter's songwriting process is humor and irony, but not just in the lyrics.

I found this great quote, when they're writing the music, they crack each other up by finding, quote, whatever the funniest thing we can think of is. It had to pass as straight. We didn't want the humor to be broad. We wanted it to be nuanced. But these guys are rolling on the floor, cracking each other up about, the music they're putting in. And in my mind, what that means,

and this is open to interpretation. And I'd love to hear the jazz Daredevil's take on this. Okay. Because you are a professional comedian. You're both professional comedians. Yeah. I'm an amateur, whatever I am. And I think what they're doing is mixing things they genuinely love

and think are interesting with things that are a little bit like whimsical. Like to make that slide, I just picture them cracking up when they came up with that. Or when the guitar player came up with it, they're like, that's hysterical. What do you think? I'm going to say no on that. It's not funny to you.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think they're like... We might be in agreeance on this because I think that you think that they're cracking up doing that little slide, but I think it sounds good. Yeah, I also think it sounds good. But to make the, I'm not saying it's funny because it's bad.

Right. No, I know exactly what you're saying. Like, oh, wouldn't it be like kind of sardonic? If I did, meo-you know, like... It's grimly cynical. I think unless we have... a mole in the studio or maybe your secret friend knows

whoever they may be. It's impossible to know exactly. It's impossible to know if they thought that that was funny versus something else that was played. Well look we're jumping ahead a little bit to we'll be talking about your project in a little bit but there's something you know firsthand about being in the studio making music where choices

you make and you being you may be coming from perspective but there's an awareness that something is there's a kind of comedy that's not like ha ha funny it's just like oh that choice is there's a wink to it. There's something we know we're doing here. Well, like for instance, I guess like in maybe a better example would be like in Asia, right? Like that that break that they take from their song.

Right. The journey for the last couple minutes you mean? Does feel like I it's the kind of, it is funny to me to hear that. But I imagine for most people they're either like, well that's why I sat through that and then I like the and I like the pop song. But for them, it might have been ironic in the sense that they were going to make people listen to that. But I think, I agree with you. Which is a certain version of comedy, I guess it's like, yeah.

The musical version of it, I think sometimes when you're, the musician is, let's take this to a crazy place. And sometimes it's the absurdity of it or it's the fact that it's such a huge contrast to the previous thing or the fact that maybe it's like a ridiculously technical thing to do. But it's not meant to have the listener laugh at it. Yeah. It's almost like a side joke with the musicians that are recording it. Yeah. It's like when you said, it's a little trolley, maybe. Like when, yeah, but yeah. There's some nuanced language that's hard to like put your finger on. We're going to push the music so much because that's what we can do. And it makes us smile. And as listeners,

as Diallo and I, as we do the show, almost every week, there's a moment that we hear in the stems that we're laughing not because it's funny, not because it's bad, but because there's something, it's this sort of umami of funniness in music that's not your typical like punchline on stage stand-up kind of joke. Right. Yeah. But it's also not just music. There's something richer there. We'll talk about this a little bit in a second when we talk about the vocals and the lyrics, but I do think there are things that musicians, just because they have a body of knowledge, there are jokes that make sense to other musicians. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Inside joke. Inside joke. very insight. I think that that's very present. On a recent episode we were doing about thriller,

there's that sound and thriller, it's like, bro, bo, bo. The frog. It's like a frog. It was like from a video game or something like that? No, it's from a little kid's Cassio. Oh, it's from the kids Cassio. Yeah, yeah. I think that like, not to take anything away from Steely Dan, I think that a lot of groups, when you're in the studio for hours and hours, like you'll throw in a little something that makes people laugh, but then it becomes kind of like a crucial part of the song. I think part of it, if I may, because analyzing comedy is obviously the worst thing, right? I mean, like, you can never really find it. It's so elusive. I do think, though, part of what you're going for in both of them,

what they share is something that is noticeable or different or unusual. And sometimes there's a smile and a laugh, which isn't like, that's bad. I'm not making fun. It's not that kind. It's more of it just like, that's the unusual thing we want it. That's the surprise that I didn't know was going to come out of my body or my mouth. Right. And that elicits this kind of response.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. That was what the rhythm guitar was doing. What about this other guitar solo? Yeah, we got to talk about the guitar solo. So I mentioned up top, you know, Steely Dan fans, it's one of these bands that if you know a little bit about Steely Dan, you tend to know everything. And so most Steely Dan fans have found this video as I have about the classic albums, Asia, hour-long video about the making of. If you haven't seen it and your fan, I highly recommend it. They tell this story and I'm going to play you some clips from it because they,

had six or maybe eight different guitarists come in to try and nail this solo. And in this video, the reason why it's video is relevant is because you get kind of a glimpse of what it must have been like at the time for them in the booth, sardonically listening to all these performers and dismissing them out of hand and then they never got the callback. So first I'll play what Jay Graydon played, which he was the one whose solo made the cut. And his solo was the seventh or eighth that they heard that day or that month. I'm not sure how long it took them. And it sounded like this. I don't have to play the whole thing because it's long, but it is abrasive as well. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. It's one of the most hilarious solo.

Okay. I said actually one of like my favorite guitar solos in Annie's song. Why is it funny? Yeah. Why is it funny? Break it down, bro. No, no, sorry. That sounded. Well, it's a bit crazy. And I, you, I assume you'll play like some of the other. versions, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll see, like, how untraditional a version that was, and that was their choice. So for that, like I said, I don't, like I said, I don't think they were like laughing hysterically after he did that, but they were like, that's maybe the most unusual choice. I think unusual is the word. This is laughter of finding that perfect unusual, unexpected thing. Right. In the bed of something that they've crafted perfectly. But at the same time,

Like, unironically, it sounds great in the song. So, like, you know, like, so hard to parse. It jumps out of the song because it's so unexpected and the sounds are different. Well, let's play to your point. And from this video, here is Don and Walter in the studio listening. Playing back actually from their, you know, from 20 years earlier, they're listening for the first time since they made the record to some of the unused takes. And I just want to call attention to how they react.

There you go. In other words, it makes yourself really. Wait, wait, was that? What is he said? They say, there you go. Was that in the studio? Or was that from the documentary? They're in the doc.

This is in the documentary, listening back to the studio tapes. Yeah, yeah. Just picture these two guys dryly listening back. Yeah. No expression. And they go, there you go. Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it? So devastating.

It's like, right. You're insulting that player. Like, so directly. They don't name them. So we don't know who's is whose. That's true. Six or seven guys. But they're basically saying these guys fucking sucked.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, for the keys, we've got a lot of harmonic goodness. It is harmonic goodness. We've got a rose. We've got a clavinet. And we have a piano. That's right.

Let's hear some of that. So this is Paul Griffin on Fender Rhodes and Don Grolnick on clabinet. Oh, and by the way, I almost forgot. That's Tom Scott on the Lyricon. I'll be talking more about him and his unusual instrument in just a moment. But that's the horn sound you hear. I love that swirl. There's so much phasing going on.

I think it's a flange maybe on the roads. I'm not really sure. I can't really isolate it, I'm guessing. But yeah, it's such a distinctive sound. It gives you some color right off the back. I've been to Lyricon. It's one of the... No, that's the name of the instrument.

Oh. It's down there at Crypto Coliseum every year. Yeah, yeah. There's like 200,000 people. All coming for lyrics, right? Yeah, all coming for lyrics. Listen, we're going to get into all these parts. You can buy them there.

No way. Yeah, yeah. It's Chris. Yeah. Do you sign autographs there? If you love conventions, go to Lyricon. Go to the series later. Yeah.

People bring baseball cards. What is a Lyricon? I don't know what that instrument is. A lot of people don't know what it is. It is an electronic wind instrument, the first wind controller, like a MIDI controller, basically. But for the sounds that we hear that are horn sounds. So you're not actually hearing a horn section.

That's not a sax. It's this gentleman, Tom Scott, very important guy. I'll give you a little, give him his flowers on this episode. He is the first person to own and use a wind controller, as far as I know on recording. And he reminds you all the time. He's like, I'm the guy who... Here's, I'll find you a part a little bit later

where it's a little more isolated. This is the Lyricon melody that is halfway through the verse. I always thought that was a horn. It sounds like a horn section even. That's a Lyricon. It's a lyricon. It's not several horn players.

It's actually Tom Scott playing this instrument. And I'll play it for you in another song that you'll recognize. That's a lyric. Yeah. He's an important dude. He used to be in the LA Express. He worked with early Joni Mitchell.

It's him. Yes, it's Tim. I just got to say, Tom Scott is responsible for a song called Today. Okay. And it has a very prominent saxophone, which was sampled by Pete Rock for the 90s hip-hop classic they reminisce over you, T-R-O-Y. Troy, like one of the greatest hip-hop samples of all time. I didn't know that was him.

I mean, we're going to talk about it. a lot. He shows up every time hip hop. It's almost like hip hop is chasing a Tom Scott song. It's crazy. Is that the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, yeah, it's that song. Yeah, yeah. Tom Scott has done so much. And he's one, he's a core, like just an L.A. guy, L.A. session guy. He's on Billy Jean. As we said, he also wrote the theme song from this show. That's right. Starsky and Hutch. He wrote that. Yeah. Yeah. And one last thing, important thing we need to know that he did was the tenor sax on. This song. Oh, that's... Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

That's right. One of our favorites here. He plays the sax solo on Doya by Rod Stewart, as well as the sax solo on Rapture by Blondie. The guy is important in the world of music. Also, I just learned the fun fact that Tom Scott was also the band leader on the short-lived Chevy Chase show. No.

So Chevy Chase and Tom Scott coming full circle on Steely Dan. Amazing. Let's hear some more harmonic goodness, my friend. here is the main vamp of Pegg. And that's it. You're hearing the stack. They're all playing absolutely in unison and wonderfully blended. So you're getting the clavinet is giving a little bit of that edge and funkiness. The roads is smooth with a little bit of, I think, the flange. And I believe there's piano in there, although on that listen, I wasn't really hearing it. But maybe buried in the mix.

If I can be pretentious for one second, because I just learned this watching. Or an hour. I'm sorry, it was right there. I've been so censoring all episodes. It was right there. It was right there. He finally let it out. He's been keeping it in for 58 episodes.

And it was worth it. Today's the day. Jesus Christ. I feel better now. I feel like some air has been letting out. I am done. But we call that that's a plagal cadence. Those two chords,

which is going from the four to the one. It's the way you resolve as a cadence. This is a plagal cadence. 4-1. And then in the chorus, there's a little percussion that gets added, and it sounds a little, something like this. So there aren't any horns on this song where I thought the horns were pretty prominent. There are no actual horn. I mean, look, it's a technicality. The Lyricon is technically a horn. I guess it's technically a MIDI controller, but that's the horn section that we're hearing. It's not a bunch of guys with brass instruments. Sorry, Jerry Hay. famous horn man.

Now we're going to talk about the vocals, these wonderful Donald Fagan vocals. And it's always Donald who sings the song, right? Donald's the primary singer in the earliest days. Originally they had David Palmer, and he's on dirty work and reeling in the years. But everything else basically is Donald Fagan, is the lead singer.

Hold on, because we haven't even mentioned what Walter does on this track. Yeah, weirdly enough. So Becker's not on this track. This is one of the rare tracks on the record. So it's Donald Fagan on vocals, and there's some backing vocalists, including Paul Griffin, who's also on keyboards. Okay. And a special backing vocalist who we will be spending more time on.

But first, let's just hear that first verse. Here's Donald. I've seen your picture. Your name and lights above it. So much space in between those lines. This is your big debut. It's like a dream come true. So won't you smile for the camera?

So let's go on and talk about this song because as a casual listener to this song, I have never thought about the lyrics that deeply. Okay. But once you start reading the lyrics, you're like, what is he talking about? Yeah. And pretty soon, it takes on a dark tone, peg. Do you have a theory before we get into what you found? I'm curious with what John's take on the song.

What's the song about? I mean, it seems to be a song. about a relationship that I don't know how old the person is. It could be a young boy. Would be one theory. Peg?

Or the singer? The first person? The subject, right. And or it could be an actual relationship somebody had with somebody who became famous. That's what I'd probably think. Right. And then

the relationship went sour. Yeah. And there was some bad blood with the insults about the pin shot. And now you're... Right? Which is also not a word that... I think they invented it for the song to hear the telling. Yeah, they hear them telling.

They just felt like the word sin up was hard to sing. It didn't sound good. Right. I've got your pin up. Right. Or it didn't fit the rhyme scheme, which is also odd, right? And it also is kind of that surprise thing we were talking about with the other aspects of their music. It's like something that a little different so jumps out. and that's poetry, by the way, so you

license to do that. Is that how you felt? I'm going to tell you what my theory is. But before I do, just to give it even more context, play us the chorus, please. You got it. They're on the shirt of Chalder Blas. You see it all. It's your favorite foreign movie.

Oh, my God. Yeah. I can't wait to break that down. So here's my theory. I can't wait to break that down. And feel free to rebuke it. I think there's a very dark song about a guy who used to, a lady named Pegg

and basically she ended up going to presumably Hollywood given us in 1977 and she her big debut is in porn that's what I think too yeah you see it all in 3D it's your favorite foreign movie to the younger listeners out there

hopefully not too young foreign movie used to be like most of the porn that was watched in America came from overseas Sweden produced quite a bit of it and you see it all in 3D this song is essentially predating the Jay Giles band's

Centerfold in terms of the topic. But it's even darker because I think there's something, it's like when you see a horror film, but it all takes place in the daytime. You know what I mean? Like, this is like a super poppy, like happy sounding song on a very dark sad subject. And I will only say this

dark and sad because they're presenting it as sort of being dark and sad. Look, I think, you know, presumably as long as she's happy in her life, he should not be sort of guilt-tripping her. Like, this is her choice. you think he's guilt-ripping her? Like it will come back to you.

It's a karma thing. He says it will come back to you, which is a judgment. It could be uplifting. Like maybe your movie career will come back to you. Maybe your dream will come back to you. By the way, I think that the view of the Jake Giles band and Steely Dan on this song, I think that they're wrong. I mean, like, I think that there's something very old school and lame about, like,

being like, my memory has just been sold. Like, such ownership of her. So judgy. You see it all in 3D. It's mad, judgy. Maybe she's owning her sexuality. She's owning her body. She's monetizing his mindful control.

I'm totally on board with that theory. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't think he's being retributive. It'll come back to you. Are you sure? Because he literally says it will come back to you. I don't know. Oh, that feels like such a judgment. Like, right?

You guys are probably right. I'm trying to look for the like. Like this is going to come back to. The ray of light. And when you smile for the camera, I know I'll love you better. That is a little gross. Steely Dan has another song called Everyone's Gone to the Movies, which is literally about an old man who's showing dirty movies to kids in his din.

And it's another one of these poppy songs from Steely Dan. And I just think that they really, you know, for the lack of better tour, they really got off from writing really happy pop songs with like dark. We have not. Dive into the lyrics, it's like dark. But I think it also made them laugh. We haven't even gotten into Gaucho yet, which is my favorite record. and the record they made after this one.

A hey 19. Hey 19. Even Babylon sisters. The whole record is a little bit... I gotta say, I don't know what Hay 19. It's a little bit... A19 is the hit from Gaucho, right? The whole record is a little bit of an older man, younger women, L.A., fading, middle age,

about to get divorced or maybe about to make a decision that will cause a divorce. That's what the whole vibe of that record is. It's this sort of, though, letcherous, older, professor, younger student kind of vibe is very, very much, that's a big part of a lot of their, of, it's like this thing. I would say we could hear some more vocals, but honestly, we've heard two-thirds of the vocals in the entire song. It's true. Like, it's very

important to know, we've heard the first verse, and we've heard the chorus, but maybe we can hear some background vocals. Oh, man, the background vocals. Let's talk about the background vocals. In 1973, there was a man who wasn't famous yet named Michael McDonald who joined Steely Dan. Not everybody knows that Michael McDonald's started in Steely Dan. Yes, he joined

the band in, early 70s. Oh my gosh, I could see Michael McDonald's singing peg. I could tell you see it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he did. That's who we're hearing on this song, my friend. Yeah. I mean, if you want to, if you want to see someone learn something real time, you just did on YouTube. Go for it. The way, the way Fagan and Becker tell the story is they originally pictured in their minds that there would be four saxes doing that call-in response part. The response part of the vocal was originally a sax line. And then they decided to do for Michael McDonald's instead.

So he's overdubbing himself. Let's hear a little snippet of that. Back to you. For Michael McDonald's. That's a crazy band, too. I'd listen to that band. Hell yeah. Oh my God, it's so warm.

Don't you wish you had that as your ringtone? I'll get back to you. Here, let me give everyone, all the listening audience. Leave a message because, fuck to you. Wait, can we give me. them a message, I'll do that, and then you can do the like answer machine message. John Benjamin is not going to give the one song nation their answering machine echoing message. Here we go.

Hey, everybody. You've reached the offices of one song. Please leave a message and we'll get. Fucking nailed it. Amazing. Yay. This is a professional man over here. What a professional man.

Professional man. Yeah. Well, I know that I have personally learned a ton today. But John, I'll start with you. What's the legacy of Peg and Steele? like I think like you guys said it's one of their most popular songs I feel like probably people don't listen to steely Dan as much as they used to and they should go back right and listen to like that it's so many hits yeah I mean a 40 million sold albums they're not they're not underrated

but are they in the culture now yeah but they're yeah culturally relevant now maybe amongst like you know music nerds and and such so yeah I was going to say there's a conversation happening right now like on TikTok about this kind of Berkeley school of musicy like super muso harmony jazz funk but practitionered by white artists and white band so they're clearly one of the progenitors is that the word forerunners of this thing yeah wait can i so there is muso a word what's that what's muso are you making that up no no no that's i don't know i've heard it on like british sitcoms growing up which was like my bread and butter as a only child you've done 75 episodes? What is a Muso?

Muso. Muzo is just a musically educated person. And it's kind of used a little bit negatively, like, putting too much musical information into something simple. Like what a British bully would yell at. Yes. You fucking.

Hey, Muzo, come over here. You Muzo. Look at this Muzo. Talking about Plago Cuydency. I don't fucking K. What about you, Ziyalo? What are your thoughts on Steely Dan's legacy?

Man, I mean, first off, again, I've learned so much. And my take on their legacy, look, I came into this knowing them primarily through hip-hop, and I do want to take a second and say that their legacy is somewhat preserved, maybe more than every band from 1977, because they have allowed their music to be sampled by hip-hop. Note to all those Baby Boomer-era bands, like, let hip-hop sample you, because,

It actually will turn, you know, new fans on to you, you know, and help keep your music alive. On the 33 and a third podcast episode about Asia, Paz from De La Sol, shout out to Paz, has an interesting take about why so many rappers have sampled their music. He says, quote, I think that has a lot to do with their arrangements, the journey that they can take you on, whether it's in a chorus or a bridge or another chorus. We could easily take another 15 minutes to talk about all of the steely dance songs that have been sampled by hip-hop, but I wanted to call out of it. a few examples, starting with one that Paz

would know a lot about. De La Soul Samples Pig on their song, I know from the 1989 album, Three Feet High and Rising. Kanye famously sampled Kid Charlemagne for Champion on his 2007, I think his best album, 2007 album, Graduation.

But we would be absolutely in the wrong if I did not mention the Lord Tarreek and Peter Gunn's song Deja Vu. This is a song that anytime it comes on, if there are real hip hop heads, it still just gets everybody going out of their mind, and you'll just see all the aggressive 90s dancing

that we used to do. This is Deja Vu Uptown Baby. New York to the heart, but I love for all. By the way, that song samples Black Cow. Right, also from this record. First song on this record, Asia. And because I always have to pull or cold water Oh, no, you're going to pour cold water.

Oh, a little cold water. We love, we love the Steely Dan boys. We love Walter and Donald here. But, yeah, they did demand $15,000 advance and 100% of the publishing royalties on this song. No, you're telling me, Lord Trey. And Peter Guns get no publishing on that. As much as we love to credit them for allowing rappers to sample them, they didn't really allow very much in this case. That is, you know, I will say this.

That's their legacy. Yeah, it's a little bit of the legacy. Their legacy is the publishing of Lord Tarika and Peter. guns. And they sampled, or they didn't sample, but they ripped off Horace Silver. Yeah. Well, wait. What is this? Oh, yeah, they ripped up Horace Silver in

Ricky Don't lose that number. Wait, well, wait, let's hear let's hear what they ripped off. Yeah. You couldn't know this. I mentioned Horace Silver earlier in the episode. Yeah, you did. That's so random. Yeah, yeah. It's one of my favorite jazz artists all the time. I did not know this. Yeah. Okay, so here's Ricky

don't lose. Oh, I know this Horace Silver song. Holy shit. I know exactly. I mean, that's Horace Silver. They just replayed it. Song for my father. That's a replay.

Or as we call it on this show, Interpolation. Thank you. You've entered the fraternity. We've all whispered it in unison. What was the end result? I don't know the horse gets some money or? I understand that they faced a plagiarism suit for that,

but I don't know the outcome of it. But I do know the outcome of this one. So that's Keith Jarrett, long as you know, you're living yours. And here is the song Gaucho. So in that case, there's kind of a funny story because they were being interviewed in musician magazine, and the interviewer brings it up and goes,

are you familiar with a Keith Jarrett tune called As Long as You Know You're Living Yours? And they go, yeah, have you ever listened to that next to Gaucho? And Becker goes, no. And the interviewer goes, I'm not casting aspersions now, but the tempo and the bass and the melody. So basically, Becker goes, yeah, actually it is. And then the interviewer goes,

do you want to go off the record? and they say, off the record, we were heavily influenced by that particular piece of music. And then they lost a third of the publishing. That was the confession. So they gave them a chance to go off the record and they decided to double down on the joke. Wow. And lost a third of the song in the process. Well, all right.

I'm going to go on the record and say, I think that's super lame. If you're going to take 100% of the publishing from Lord Tarik and Peter Guns for sampling Black Cow, but then you give no publishing. credit to Horace Silver for songs of my father. I think that's super lame. I think both things can be true. John, I want to hear what you have to say. I mean, I think you can appreciate their music, but I think that was, I agree with you. That's in bad form. My opinion is that taking 100% of the hip-hop song is, that's to me not okay. That's beyond uncool. If anything, you could make a case that some portion of 50% because of the music should maybe be shared. But the top line, the vocals, the lyrics, the rap is

100% original. So that 50% should be untouched. Fine. Make an argument for some portion of that. But for me, the Horace Silver thing, that's a little bit of a jazz. It's a little bit of a trope to play the bit, the root and the fifth in that rhythm. With that

percussion, it's, I think part of, like, you will probably find a bunch of other songs that also do that because it's genre. It's more of what you do. I will say somebody grew up. Yeah, you mean the Silver song. And the second you started playing the Steely Dan song, I realized I wasn't listening to the Horace Silver song. I was like, wait,

this is a different song. Go ahead. Well, but what you're saying is in the jazz tradition, you are going to be replaying phrases all the time. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of a stock phrase. It's kind of a building block. But it seems to make the case a little bit of a bad taste. Yeah. I hear what you're saying and I generally take the position. If jazz steals from jazz, I guess. I don't know, right? Like, but if you're Steely Dan and you do that. I think the hypocrisy is in them taking the 100% on the hip-hop song. That to me is where things, that, that, contrast is that might inform right right if they had let that go then they'd be in the right morally they'd be consistent right yeah that didn't happen yeah but they don't have that

moral compass that we all do in this room the righteous arbiters i'll say what else they had that we don't have millions and millions of dollars well wait a second that's not exactly true oh john has done well beyond all of our dreams oh man we learned a lot this episode john john has a secret friend and there's a million and millions of millions of dollars. Millions of dollars. In stolen jazz loot. John, now that we've talked about Steely Dan's big jazz record,

let's talk about your jazz project. It's called Jazz Daredevil. The Jazz Daredevil. The Jazz Daredevil. And the album is called the original motion picture soundtrack of the unproduced film, The Jazz Daredevil. Just like Steely Dan, it's very witty. Let's play a clip.

I don't play piano at all. And I'm not a huge fan. of jazz. It never was. John. Yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you. Between horse being robbed and then that line, I feel like jazz is taking a hit today.

Yeah, they took a hit. I learned my lesson. From white Jews, no less. Let's face it. Like, I'll be the one to say it. I'll be the one to say it. John, you are not part of the problem today. The world society is, but you are not the problem. Let me just ask. I feel like there's some Steely Dan vibes in

in my soloing. Sure. I feel that. No, you got a pick. You got a pick the oddest version. I agree with you. Here's what you're doing, which you probably know already, but like what I hear when you're doing your project, it's hysterical, it's funny. I've listened to that 50 times. I'll listen to 50 more before the week is over. But you are actually accurately, rhythmically doing something. The joke is that the notes are wrong. There's no correct notes at all. But rhythmically, you've got kind of a pocket, man. You're kind of syncopating. And to your point,

Donald Fagan, the way he plays piano with block chords and simplicity is similar. You're kind of playing similar to him. You really are. Yeah. I thought it was out of atrocious, but I thought that was sort of the point of it. I know, I mean, I think, I think maybe both things. We can hold both thoughts in our heads. Yeah.

Oh, 59 episodes. listen, you're recording an album with some serious jazz musicians. Yep. Even though you don't play a piano. How did you convince them to play with you? Well, I wrote the sax player and I told him the conceit of the joke. When we played it live in the studio through, we played like, I think it were four tracks. So he's in on it.

He was in on it, but he forgot. Like when he arrived, he was like that classic, like, wait, what are we doing here? and then when we went into play and I played my first solo because he brought in some phrasing and like here's how so he kind of composed a little bit of it. He was just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Because they couldn't play with me. Is what we heard the first take? Was that or did you do a few? That was probably, we didn't do a lot of takes. And then he gave me like a quick lesson of what to do, just like, or how to play along with the music, that wouldn't disrupt them so they could play through without, like, stopping. Okay.

What had you been doing prior to that lesson? Nothing. Okay. You literally had not played piano. No, I mean, literally had not played piano in my entire life. Yeah. No, and I'm saying the lesson was in the session. Yeah.

Like, he was just, like, play the court, you know, the, the, the court. I'm not doubting that what he taught you is valuable, but you're, that's instinctive. to like, I'm sorry, but like rhythmically what you're doing is something. Yeah, I picked it up quickly. You've got the foundation. You've got the foundation for a career. I honestly, if you listen to that whole album through, I am like getting better. From song one to song 14. That's how we like albums. We like our albums.

I like it when you can tell the person is getting better as you listen to the album. And you're looking forward to the next album. Right. It keeps going. the next song, because you're like, maybe it'll get better. Keeps going. Yeah. This isn't your first jazz album. Your first one was called, well, I should have. How different was the recording process

for that album versus this soundtrack? Well, the soundtrack album that I just put out is more of a concept album. So I don't play on all the tracks. And it is based on a screenplay of a movie that doesn't exist. It didn't get made. So in the narrative of the movie,

the jazz daredevil character is enlisted to produce an album for a woman. It's like a noir murder story. And it's sort of like buried in the album so you'll hear clips from the movie. Will we ever see this film, do you think? Like now that you're like, let's say that the soundtrack does really well,

would it be a goal of yours to get the film actually made? I mean, I would love that, but I don't have high hopes. Oh, come on. Because then you'd have to change all the copies to the produced film instead of unproduced. We do have some wealthy people who listen to the show. Should they call? Is there like a phone number you want to get out for financing?

There's an email on the back of the album. Okay. Yeah. If you want to send money. Make this movie, guys. If you want to send money. One song nation, make it happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Cuban. He's never liked that. He's never liked our videos. He's never liked one of my videos once. Mark Cuban is? Sure he is. I wish I'd know that before. Okay, John, before we let you go.

We want to play a game. It's called What's One Song? Here are the rules. Just so you know I hate games. No, no. You hate jazz too, but you've made an album. But go ahead. We'll give you a scenario.

There enough. I'm not arguing. We'll give you a scenario and you give us the song you would play during the scenario and we'll want you to answer as quickly as possible. That's the only thing that we ask. Don't overthink it. Just answer as quickly as possible. Let's begin.

What's one song you can't get out of your head right now? I'm every woman. My shock of God. We just covered that one. I think that's why. That's probably it. I think I listened to your episode yesterday. Oh, God.

Thank you, man. What's one song that inspired you as you were. recorded the jazz daredevil. A Vertigo, a song from Verne. Oh, that's cool. Who did that soundtrack? Bernard Herman. One of our favorites.

Yeah. Every time I find out I like a soundtrack, I find out that he had a hand in it. You know, it's like one of those things. Yeah, it did so many back. So many that you just forget. All the Hitchcock. What's one song you can listen to every day for the rest of your life? Because I hate my life, born in the USA.

Your childhood scarred you is like, they were dressed like Bruce Breenstein, they were playing born in the USA. Oh, yeah. What's an underrated jazz song that you think everyone needs to hear? Presumably because you can tolerate it. Pangia, Miles Davis, right?

The whole album. That's not a song. No, that works. Last one, what's one song that we have to break down on a future episode of one song? It would be Velvet Underground, I would guess, probably. Which really?

Or Sweet Chain, I would say. Great song. Love it. Love it. Sweet chain. And it was covered by somebody in the age. Cowboy Junkies. Cowboy Junkies, man.

Their appearance on Saturday Live was so good. Did they do that? They did it. They did it. It's like to mellow, kind of more chill. Yeah. Brakes my heart. John Benjamin, thank you so much for playing that game and joining us on one song.

Where can people find you? I am on Instagram. I think it's Jazz Daredevil. John Benjamin, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, guys. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-A-A-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-R-R-L-O. You can find me on Instagram at Luxury with two X's and on TikTok at L-U-X-X-U-X-U-S-U-R-Y-X.

You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube now. That's right. Just search One Song podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. And if you've made it this far, I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review and share it with someone you think would like the show because it really helps keep us going. Luxury, help us in this thing.

I'm producer DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo-Riddle. And this is One Song. We'll see you next time.