Waxing Nostalgic: Steely Dan, “My Old School”

By Jeffery X Martin

Seventies band Steely Dan has long been relegated to the dark cellars of soft rock FM stations, buried in long blocks of classic songs you can sing along to at work, brought to you by some weight loss clinic on the other side of town. It’s an unfair sentence for a band that combined rock and roll with jazz riffs and topped the charts doing it.

Core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met at Bard College, which makes sense. Their music feels scholarly, every measure carefully thought out, as if each song were the concluding paragraph of a particularly grueling thesis. Their mixture of conventional rock and roll songwriting with the surprising dash of jazz structure (open G chord! Open C chord! F sharp major diminished 7th and play this note with your pinkie toe!) was revolutionary at the time, delighting critics and hep cats with kids everywhere.

While you’re trapped in the dentist’s office, listening to the piped-in Muzak designed to calm your nerves, and Steely Dan comes on, prick up your ears and listen, really listen. There’s a desert dry wit in those lyrics that perfectly complements the musical mastery.

“My Old School” tells the story of a party gone bad. It’s a true story, during which Fagen, Becker, and Fagen’s girlfriend were all arrested. This was back when being a “longhair” made you suspect for being everything from a pedophile to a Communist. As with most of their songs, the story is told wryly, with an implied sardonic smile. The narrator has seen too much and not learned enough.

“Tried to warn you about Chino and Daddy G/But I can’t seem to get to you through the US Mail.”

The music itself veers crazily between ragtime and rock, with a delightfully odd guitar break that wouldn’t be out of place in any Jimi Hendrix song. It’s not the music you expect in a tune about an unjust arrest, but instead of coming across as jarring, it simply makes the listener feel, well, kind of smooth. A bit jaded. Like you’ve just had a few gin drinks and are wearing an ill-advised Panama hat.

It’s time for a reevaluation of Steely Dan. It’s easy to dismiss them as some soft rock outfit from the Seventies, like Player or Ace, but there’s much more beneath the surface. Stunning arrangements, clever lyrics, and a biting sense of humor permeate Steely Dan’s work. Get back into them before they’re appropriated by hipsters.

Listen to “My Old School” and other songs from this series on the Waxing Nostalgic playlist on Spotify! You can subscribe to it, too, so you’ve always got the newest old music!