“When Donald [Fagen] and I started writing together
way back when we were in college and for several years after that, the songs
that we wrote were humorous but in fact they were too humorous....They were
just too jokey and sounded like novelty songs. But we realized that was a
liability and so we developed over time and we sort of tempered that idea, and
honed into the idea of things having humor in them but a certain kind of humor
and a certain amount of humor, along with other stuff. Because we were both
definitely interested in humor as a central element of what we were doing, but
we didn’t want to write Tom Lehrer songs.”—Songwriter-guitarist Walter Becker,
on his collaboration with Steely Dan partner Donald Fagen, interviewed by Paul
Zollo, Songwriters on Songwriting, Expanded Fourth Edition (2003)
Walter Becker was born on this day 65 years ago in Queens, N.Y. One
of the best short summaries of the importance of Steely Dan is Nicholas Pell’s post on the blog “The Nervous Breakdown.”
For further details on a turning point in the career
of Steely Dan—their decision to cease live performing after the Fourth of July
in 1974—see my post from last year.
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