The Perfect Song #1 - My Old School - Steely Dan
Steely Dan’s arrival on the music scene in late 1972 with stunning debut album Can’t Buy a Thrill including hit singles “Do it Again” (Billboard #6) and “Reeling in the Years” (#11), which combined elements of jazz, rock and pop with deeper philosophical lyrics was a mighty addition to a music scene peaking in all genres from soul, reggae and funk to glam rock, progressive rock, hard rock and not to mention singer-songwriter galore. Although the Dan seemed to resemble more a musician’s collective initially, two key players emerged, the organist Donald Fagen and bassist Walter Becker, the songwriting partnership of the band. Fans did not have to wait long for their follow-up album.
Song: My Old School
Artist: Steely Dan
Album: Countdown to Ecastasy (1973)
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VERSE ONE
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 girly in the County Jail
PRE-CHORUS
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
CHORUS
I said ‘Oh no, William and Mary won’t do’
Well I did not think the girl could be so cruel
And I’m never going back to my old school
VERSE TWO
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
PRE-CHORUS
Well I hear the whistle but I can’t go
I’m gonna take her down to Mexico
CHORUS
She said ‘Whoa no Guadalajara won’t do’
Well I did not think the girl could be so cruel
And I’m never going back to my old school
VERSE THREE
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 US Mail
PRE-CHORUS
Well I hear the whistle but I can’t go
I’m gonna take her down to Mexico
CHORUS
She said ‘Oh no Guadalajara won’t do’
Well I did not think the girl could be so cruel
And I’m never going back to my old school. Description text goes here
The glorious summer of ’73 saw the arrival of Countdown to Ecstasy. This jazz-rock collection of four to five minute songs infused with slick guitar breaks and joyful horns proved a worthy successor to the previous year’s startling introduction. Contained amongst its eight nuggets and perhaps best encapsulating the spirit of this west coast outfit was the song “My Old School”. Any song which included the lyrics ‘I’m never going back to my old school’ would certainly enthuse the hordes of teenage boys and girls stretched across the USA and UK donning their uniforms to head off for double maths as Oil Shocks and homework by candlelight pervaded the evening gloom of the two-up two-downs from Boston to Manchester. And boy, did this song liven up those days.
The structure is clear: three verses, three choruses with guitar breaks inbetween and a one minute long horn and guitar fade out. The lyrics contain a story, but one that is open to different interpretations, and such is the urge to sing along especially with the female backing singer fuelled chorus that the listener soon starts asking questions. The first would most certainly be ‘Where is this Annandale?’
Annandale seems to be the destination of the train (Wolverine) Fagen finds himself on to start his time at Bard College in the same area of New York State. In the first verse we learn that his girlfriend has seen him off in style in surely the most lyrically dexterous way of describing fellatio! The story goes on to tell of a drugs raid on the college premises facilitated by the college principals, which saw Fagen, Becker and dozens of others arrested and freed on bail, although it seems his girl, the one who saw him off on the train is also somehow involved. Did she sell out the drug users at Bard in exchange for a more lenient sentence back home after being caught herself? Was she there in Annandale on the night/morning of the raid? Whatever, the fact remains that Fagen bears some resentment to the people who informed on them and thus pledges that California would have to disappear into the Pacific Ocean before he ever goes back to Annandale. Moreover, he would like to take his girl - whether she did the dirty on him or not - down to Mexico to escape the forthcoming drug charges, but she doesn’t seem that interested. And thus the song becomes more than a gripe at an old school and more a classic tale of boy loses girl. Maybe only Donald Fagen himself can tell us the full story. What is undeniable though is the songwriting genius.
In the second verse, Fagen superbly manages to get the flower ‘Oleanders’ to rhyme with ‘I can’t stand her’ and later the State of ‘California’ to rhyme with ‘Tried to warn you’ (pronounced ‘ya’). Moreover, the references to ‘whistles’ and ‘US Mail’ echo a long history in American popular song - from Leadbelly, Elvis, The Beatles and Johnny Cash - of nods to the railroad and mail. Fagen’s Wolverine train and failed attempts at using the US Mail continues the tradition.
So, the lyrics want us to sing along but in addition it is the piano and horn-led upbeat rhythm against drummer Jim Hodder’s Charlie Watts-style drumming that literally force us to join in coupled with the female backing vocalists as they triumphantly belt out ‘Guadalajara won’t do.’ But, wait, there is one more thing in addition to a great story, clever lyrics, upbeat tempo, catchy chorus that nails this song to the board as a perfect song, namely the guitar breaks performed by early Steely Dan stalwart Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter. Creamy, slick, sometimes even coruscating, it is Baxter’s skilled musicianship that takes this song into the next dimension. He later left the band after the next album as Fagen/Becker sought to use a range of session musicians instead, and went on to (some might say) bigger things with The Doobies and some of the biggest names in American popular music thereafter. He even went on to become an advisor to the US Defence department on its defence systems, a strange career-turn for someone who so thrilled us with his licks back in the day.
So to Baxter, Becker, the backing vocalists, the horn collective, the rest of the band and above all Donald Fagen we give thanks for the song “My Old School”, a dashboard song for summer drives whether along Ventura Highway, by the Big Sur or just coastal-roading from Tintagel to Hartland Point. Some things are eternal and this certainly is.
Postscript: Fagen picked up an honorary doctorate at Bard College over ten years later. He did in fact go back to his old school!