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In this second album (1973) by the New Yorkers Steely Dan, a usual array of people play and sing, as is typical of their projects. At the time, however, there was still a classic group core that performed regularly live as a sextet, soon reduced to a quintet after deciding to forgo the contribution of the lead singer David Palmer: the voice of the keyboardist Donald Fagen was too much more incisive, fascinating, and suited to the corrosive lyrics in their repertoire.
Together with that "Katy Lied," which would be released a couple of years later as their fourth work, "Countdown..." is their least successful album, somewhat rushed due to the huge success of the debut "Can't Buy A Thrill" and the limited time available because of the then-intense live activity. The two group leaders, the aforementioned Fagen and bassist Walter Becker, would find a drastic remedy to this starting with the following third work "Pretzel Logic": no more concerts for the next twenty years (!) and all happily buried alive in the studio, meticulously crafting compositions, lyrics, sounds, arrangements, performances, and mixes.
Since we are talking about Steely Dan, even their relatively less polished and successful album contains great songs. For instance, the opening track "Bodhisattva," where the disrespectful, urgent plea to a Buddhist guru by a guy with the problem of... selling his house (!) is rendered at an equally urgent pace and with pounding chords that then expand into the precise, characteristic, and priceless jazz-flavored harmonic openings that make their music unique. In the middle of the track, guitarist Denny Dias performs a remarkable solo, highly regarded by those who play and love this instrument: the bearded Denny be-bops frantically and swiftly through unusual chord changes and the resolute rhythmic breaks of his bandmates, keeping the effectiveness and interest of the notes he plays high the entire time, then passing the ball back to Fagen for another verse and finally to colleague Jeff Baxter for a second final solo (not as brilliant as his).
"Razor Boy" is resolved in contrast with a swaying Caribbean rhythm and inserts of vibraphone and pedal steel guitar, the country guitar of which Baxter is a master. "The Boston Rag" that follows is instead a resolutely rock mid-tempo, whose few and rigid chords sound quite unusual for this refined group with highly sophisticated harmonic progressions. Notable is the guitar solo (again by the mustachioed Baxter) over Fagen's dry piano chords.
Jazz returns to infuse the harmonic fabric and surprise the listener with refined melodic openings in the excellent and abundant (seven minutes) "Your Gold Teeth," a jazz blues dominated throughout by an exciting electric piano full of tasty undertones.
The second part of the album ranges into the insistent urban funky of "Show Biz Kids," with a very New York groove, one might say pre-hip hop, incredibly ahead of its time. The possibly most famous track of the album follows, the legendary "My Old School" inspired by certain unclear college misadventures of Fagen and Becker: the lyrics of Steely Dan are always fantastic, but to fully appreciate them, it’s practically essential to be born and raised in the USA, as there is just no way to fully understand the plethora of cultural, popular, historical, and news references, idioms, and double meanings that fill their lyrics without help from a well-educated American. Accessible to everyone, however, is the great feeling of Denny Dias on his instrument, which here dialogues and intertwines with the rhythmic frameworks sublimely, in what is undoubtedly his most famous career solo.
The very country-sounding "Pearl Of The Quarter" and the dark "King Of The World" close the album a bit quietly, telling oblique stories about characters from New Orleans and other Southern realities with the disenchanted and cynical style that is characteristic of Steely Dan, a lovable sponge-band capable of creating a pop all their own, drawing equally from jazz, soul, funky, rock, and folk and using them to tell memorable, acerbic tales of various humanity.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Bodhisattva (05:18)
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Can you show me
The shine of your Japan
The sparkle of your china
Can you show me
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
And I'll be there
To shine in your Japan
To sparkle in your China
Yes I'll be there
Bodhisattva
02 Razor Boy (03:11)
I hear you are singing a song of the past
I see no tears
I know that you know it may be the last
For many years
You'd gamble or give anything
To be in with the better half
But how many friends must I have
To begin with to make you laugh
CHORUS:
Will you still have a song to sing
When the razor boy comes
And take your fancy things away
Will you still be singing it
On that cold and windy day
You know that the coming is so close at hand
You feel all right
I guess only women in cages can stand
This kind of night
I guess only women in cages
Can play down
The things they lose
You think no tomorrow will come
When you lay down
You can't refuse
CHORUS
03 The Boston Rag (05:40)
Any news was good news
And the feeling was bad at home
I was out of mind and you
Were on the phone
Lonnie was the kingpin
Back in nineteen sixty-five
I was singing this song
When Lonnie came alive
CHORUS:
Bring back the Boston Rag
Tell all your buddies
That it ain't no drag
Bring back the Boston Rag
You were Lady Bayside
There was nothing that I could do
So I pointed my car down
Seventh Avenue
Lonnie swept the playroom
And he swallowed up all he found
It was forty-eight hours til
Lonnie came around
CHORUS
06 My Old School (05:46)
I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won't do
CHORUS:
Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I'm never going back
To my old school
Oleanders growing outside her door
Soon they're gonna be in bloom
Up in Annandale
I can't stand her
Doing what she did before
Living like a gypsy queen
In a fairy tale
Well I hear the whistle but I can't go
I'm gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won't do
CHORUS
California tumbles into the sea
That'll be the day I go
Back to Annandale
Tried to warn you
About Chino and Daddy Gee
But I can't seem to get to you
Through the U.S. Mail
Well I hear the whistle but I can't go
I'm gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won't do
CHORUS
07 Pearl of the Quarter (03:51)
On the water down in New Orleans
My baby's the pearl of the quarter
She's a charmer like you never seen
Singing voulez vous
Where the sailor spend his hard-earned pay
Red beans and rice for a quarter
You can see her almost any day
singing voulez vous
CHORUS:
And if you hear from my Louise
Won't you tell her I love her so
Please make it clear
When her day is done
She got a place to go
I walked alone down the miracle mile
I met my baby by the shine of the martyr
She stole my heart with her Cajun smile
Singing voulez vous
She loved the million dollar words I say
She loved the candy and the flowers that I bought her
She said she loved me and was on her way
Singing voulez vous
CHORUS
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