Your Top 5 Steely Dan Songs

1. Dirty Work
2. Do It Again
3. Peg
4. Bad Sneakers
5. Aja

Damn, we have to stop at 5?

I don't know if I can narrow it down to 5 but I'll try. I literally enjoy every single song in their catalog and there aren't many bands I can say that about.

Reeling In the Years - this was the one that started it all. I've been a fan since the first time I heard this on the radio. One of the biggest thrills of my musical life was seeing them perform the original version live.

Doctor Wu - like so many of their songs, I'm not entirely sure what this one is about. But it evokes a certain dark and mysterious feeling for me that I never got from any other music.

The Caves of Altamira - Only Steely Dan could write a song about cave paintings. The line "Before the fall, when they wrote it on the wall, when there wasn't even any Hollywood" always struck me as poignant. As if drawing on a cave wall was the pinnacle of culture and it's all been downhill ever since.

Don't Take Me Alive - The opening solo by Larry Carlton is a masterpiece and the lyrics paint an amazingly detailed portrait of a psychopath.

Gaucho - I hear a lot of people say they don't like this album and I was that way too for a long time. In the 90's I heard this song after not listening to it for over a decade and it was like I was hearing it for the first time. Whoever arranged the horns on this one was inspired.

I know what you're thinking: no Aja? I hear you. I could have put Deacon Blues on this list or the title track. They're certainly right up there with anything else the band has done. But if I have to limit it to 5, the ones above are what are on that list today. Ask me again tomorrow and it might be 5 other songs.

ETA: OK, I have to add one more.
Here at the Western World - We've got your skinny girls, here at the western world. What more do you need?

Really tough to pick 5 but I have a definite preference for their early albums.

Midnight Cruiser
Barrytown
My Old School
Brooklyn
The Caves of Altamira

Can't Buy a Thrill is just an incredible first album.

“Bodhisattva” always was a fave of mine.

quote:

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Kid Charlemagne

Reelin' in the Years

Bodhisattva

Black Cow

Babylon Sisters

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That’s a great list. Kid Charlemagne and Bodhisatva are two of my faves and are often not as popular. I also love Rikki don’t loose that number quite a bit, though i’m Not sure which of the other songs I’d bump, probably Black Cow but man that’s a great song too.. All 3 bring up specific memories for me. The first two a specific events with a specific group of friends as freshmen at LSU.

1) Pretzel Logic
2) Deacon blues
3) Jack of speed
4) Everything must go
5) Black cow
6) this is damn hard...

Five is an impossible number. One could reply differently if asked every hour so.


No Order:

My Old School
Green Earrings
Kid Charlemagne
Babylon Sisters
Cousin Dupree

#6. FM/ No Static

#7 Hey 19

Babylon Sisters
Bodhisattva
Hey Nineteen
Reeling in the Years
Deacon Blues

This is way too difficult.

Green Earrings

Royal Scam

Deacon Blues

Bad Sneakers

Time Out of Mind.