Well…just can’t get over the fact that Walter died….and I thought I needed to write more about it today…so, I will…Donald and Walter have been such a big part of my musical life since the 70′s that this is going to leave a hole there…I know the music will still be there but it’s like when John Entwhistle died the week before I was to see the Who here in GR…there’s just something less in the world knowing they’re gone…knowing that I’ll never again be surprised when I take the wrapper off a new SD disc and some new theme or lyric makes me smile….whenever I need to be soothed, whenever I need music to help quiet my brain when things aren’t going exactly right, I put on my SD playlists that I have heard a thousand times and I always feel better…Whenever I hear Doctor Wu and the emotions of loss and despair get replaced by elation by the end of the song, I am there waiting for Katy…that is the magic of Donald and Walter to me…that I can still be transported to other worlds with their story songs…and I grieve that there will not be any more of them…a sad, sad, day….
Tag Archives: Donald Fagen
Donald, Donald, Donald…
Well…I’ll bet you thought this one was going about Donald Trump but, unfortunately, it about one of my idols, Donald Fagen…one of the founders of Steely Dan. I read yesterday that he was arrested for assaulting his wife…pushing her into a wall and bruising her shoulder…the aftermath of that is that Libby Titus has filed for divorce…as she should…no woman should take this crap and I am so disappointed that the cool hipster personae that Donald cultivated is not true…not sure if I will completely stop listening to his stuff since it is such a big part of my life and maybe I should not be so judgmental in this case…but, as I taught my 3 boys, it is NEVER okay for any man to physically bully or hurt a woman…NEVER….no exceptions….another person I looked up to disappointing me…I hate this crap….
Sunken Condos….
Well…just made a mad dash and spent the last of my cash,…with the top down, I headed across town, to the building with the ticket on the side, and found what I was wishing for…more from Donald and a few more…okay, I know, I’ll never be Donald Fagen but I had to do something special to celebrate the release of “Sunken Condos”, Donald’s new CD….I’m on my second run through it right now and find the themes of the songs at once the same as always but different…of course you have the old guy, young woman theme in “Slinky Thing”, how could he do a cd without a song about that? But there are twists and turns that are unexpected…in “I’m not the same without you” Donald turns the breakup song on it’s head with the breakup turning the protagonist into a superman who “grows an inch taller and has heroic escapades”. I won’t go into all of the songs, there are nine after all, but one last one I want to mention is “Memorabilia”…a song about the aftermath of the nuclear tests and even mentions one of the tests names “Castle Bravo” in it…how the hell does he come up with this stuff? It looks like, to me anyway, that Donald has done again what Donald does…slinky, funky music that has all the biting lyrics that we have come to expect…if you’re a Dan fan…give it a try…it’s already in the mp3 player for the bike ride tomorrow…
Happy Birthday Donald…
Well…I would be remiss if I didn’t send out birthday wishes to Donald Fagen….half of the wonderful songwriting duo that is Steely Dan…if you’ve been here before, you know how much the snarky lyrics, sleek music, and general hipness of these two have made me smile over the years…I think this would be the group that I would pick to have if I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have one…followed, of course, by Led Zeppelin….you Dan fans out there know what I mean….how can you not like “there is nothing in Chicago for a monkey woman to do”, a lyric from ‘Your Gold Teeth” that has been running through my head every day lately.
So, everybody, send some good thoughts to Donald on his 63rd birthday…..