Steely Dan
Katy Lied

THE REVIEW

It is Saturday morning. I am alone and in the mood for reflection. I “sip” from the classic glass that seems half empty, looking at what I’ve achieved so far as if through a reversed telescope. It happens sometimes, particularly when the daily routine is interrupted for some unforeseen reason: all the melancholies and negative thoughts seem to compete to come out, crowding towards the narrow hatch of the soul. It is the moment, with no family to embrace or any of the few real friends to share these "momentary lapses of mood" with, for "Doctor Wu," on whose effective, alternative, and unorthodox treatments I have already relied in similar circumstances.

Doctor Wu is not, as some cinephile might think, a colleague of Doctor Yang, the wizard-therapist who in Woody Allen’s film “Alice” plunges the protagonist into his dream world, but rather the mysterious character that gives the title to the most representative track from a '75 album by Steely Dan, “Katy Lied.”

Are you with me, Doctor Wu / Are you really just a shadow / Of the man that I once knew / She is lovely yes she's sly / And you're an ordinary guy / Has she finally got to you / Can you hear me Doctor..."

as you may have guessed from these hints, it is a homeopathic treatment. Because this little musical marvel, a true summary of that inimitable blend of genres created by the Becker-Fagen duo in less than four minutes, exudes saudade from every pore; with Phil Wood’s alto sax sealing this twilight of emotions. Oh, yes. I have learned that the main mistake to avoid when you are at the mercy of the spleen is seeking impossible escapes in what Pascal calls “divertissement.” Thus, it’s better to rely on the sustained electric blues of “Black Friday,” an ironic song about the inexorability of “black days”; or on the uncertain steps of “bad sneakers” that don’t quite know where to take you, but which you end up following unhesitatingly ("Bad Sneakers and Piña Colada / My Friend / Stompin' on the avenue / By Radio City with a / transistor and a large / sum of money to spend..."), especially if they are guided by the guitar solo of the “pied piper” Walter Becker and the vocal blends of Fagen and Mike McDonald (who remembers The Doobie Brothers?).

In any case, wherever you cast your line within the mere 35 minutes of “Katy Lied,” so dense and inspired as to seem double, you fish well and comfort is assured. One can take an alternative route through the “Big Apple,” following the last “rounds” of a “loser” who has thrown in the towel ("Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More"), a classy R&B; or lose oneself in the mysterious and almost initiatory visions, which seem drawn from a Borges tale, of “Your Gold Teeth II” ("...Throw out your gold teeth / And see how they roll / the answer they reveal / Life is unreal), an airy West Coast music à la CSN made fascinating and exotic by Larry Carlton’s jazz guitar and the skillful piano inserts by the good Fagen. What amazes you every time you turn confidently to the therapeutic music of our duo is its timelessness, its “classic” nature due to being utterly alien to the fads of the historical moment it was composed in. A formula by Fagen/Becker and Katz, the phosphoric producer, that has as cardinal points the pursuit of a sort of Esperanto among the “languages” of American popular music (blues, jazz, R&B, folk...), the enviable technical expertise never without pathos, the rigor and a certain fussiness, a “freaks” view on the showbiz that allowed them to produce at their own pace, besides the abrasive irony that not infrequently spills into the “politically incorrect.” Among so many charlatans and improvised “therapists,” turning to Doctor Wu is really worth it, I believe. For those unfamiliar with him, I can give them the number. But mind you: don’t lose that number!