By Steve James
Reuters
NEW YORK – Somehow the idea of rock musician Donald Fagen working in a Borders book store or teaching high-school literature is about as likely as an unambiguous Steely Dan song lyric.
He is, after all, a creative force behind Steely Dan, one of rock music’s most quirky but literate bands. Yet, the singer-keyboardist never thought much would come of his college-days collaboration with guitarist Walter Becker.
“We had fall-back plans. We used to joke that if it didn’t work out we’d end up working in book stores in Manhattan, both of us being quasi-literary types,” Fagen said. “I thought if worse came to worse I’d go get a teaching degree. Luckily I didn’t have to do that.”
By that, he means the more than three decades of accolades for Steely Dan albums dating back to 1972, Fagen and Becker being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the 2000 best album Grammy award for Two Against Nature.
Fagen-Becker music can be deliciously complex and subtle and their lyrics oblique, ironic or cryptic. Rock, by its very definition, doesn’t do subtlety or irony well. But Steely Dan records have sold, even as critics put them down as purveyors of “elevator music” — or worse.
“I don’t care what they say,” Fagen told Reuters in an interview. “They play Mozart in supermarkets too. There’s nothing you can do about it!”
They’ve had their hits, like “Reelin’ in the Years,” “Hey Nineteen” or “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number” — from the 1970s. But generally, Steely Dan’s eclectic style appeals to more discerning fans, who appreciate a mesh of jazz, rhythm and blues and rock, electric guitars and horns and sardonic, articulate lyrics.
“I don’t like to lecture and I don’t want to bore people, but I think it’s nice to have pop music that has substance to it,” said Fagen, whose new solo album Morph the Cat, is being released March 7.
‘…With Jazz and Conversation’
“Morph the Cat” is Fagen’s third solo album, following 1982s The Nightfly and Kamakiriad, released in 1993. The 58-year-old singer says they represent three stages of his life — youth, middle age and death.
While not necessarily contemplating his own demise, the death phase was inspired by the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. New Jersey-raised and now a resident of New York, Fagen also says it’s about the death of culture and politics — subjects explored on the last Steely Dan album, Everything Must Go.
“Tales of love and dread in a time of terror,” is how the The New York Times described Morph the Cat songs about New Yorkers dealing with the aftershocks of Sept. 11. But in typical Fagen style, the backdrop is not always evident and only one song, “The Night Belongs to Mona,” has any specific reference to “the fire downtown.”
The album, which Fagen produced himself, is richly textured with his hallmark organ, guitar and horns, set against the metronome-precise rhythm that upsets some critics.
Addressing the persistent charge that Steely Dan sounds like Muzak on LSD, the singer/songwriter made a big admission. He and Becker once spent $50,000 from an album budget to develop a computerized rhythm sequencer. “But in the end, it was worth paying for a real drummer,” he said.
“There’s a certain effect that happens when you play jazz primarily on electric instruments. There is a kind of leveling out that happens; it does make it easy to listen to while you’re working,” said Fagen.
Sitting beside an electric piano in Warner Bros’ Manhattan offices, Fagan tells of his love of jazz and lists his heroes as Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, as well as Miles Davis’ pianist Red Garland, who he learned to imitate from records.
‘From the foot of Mount Belzoni’
But what of those lyrics, with their literary references, sly word-plays and aural sleight-of-hand?
“I don’t characterize them,” he said. “Maybe it’s for other people to characterize them. I just write what comes into my head, essentially.”
Just as 1960s academics pored over Bob Dylan’s song-poems, Fagen sometimes laughs at the thought of people dissecting his lyrics. “Most of the people who’ve seen these lyrics pretty much get the idea,” he said. “I think we’ve become better at writing more lucid, narrative things than we used to do.”
His solo songs are different from his work with Becker, whom he met when they were both fledgling jazz musicians at Bard College, a liberal arts school in upstate New York (immortalized in Steely Dan’s “My Old School” in which Fagen talked about never going back to Annandale.)
“I think mine are perhaps more subjective (lyrics), more personal,” Fagen said.
He has considered writing some kind of musical theater piece, but prefers the short format, he said.
“I think some people who are good at short-form things often overreach themselves when they try to do long-form,” he said. “I was never that fond of Duke Ellington’s longer pieces. I think he was great at writing four-minute pieces that were perfect.”
I always enjoy interviews with Mr. Fagen. His book held me to the end. Can I adopt him as my awesome uncle?
So, what IS the reference to Mount Belzoni, one wonders? Guess that
one will go to the grave…
There is only one famous guy with the last name Belzoni. He is Giovanni Belzoni an Italian/British Egyptologist active in the early 1800’s. (He is sometimes referred to as the first Egyptologist). The US was growing fast in those days and he was world famous so several places in the US were named after him.However there is no Mount Belzoni. BTW:The Mississippi Blues Trail goes through Belzoni, MS. The blues trail commemorates Mississippi’s influence on the blues.
I don’t know where the Belzoni name came from, but I suspect that the location to which Fagen is referring is Laurel Hiil, aka Snake Hill, aka Fraternity Rock, a large outcrop, now mostly quarried away, along the Eastern Spur of the New Jersey Turnpike. The hill is surrounded by the New Jersey Meadowlands, where many New York City radio stations still have their broadcast facilities, thus “at the foot of.” Fagen, a native of Passaic, would know this because NJ Route 3, one of the main roads between Passaic and NYC, crosses the Meadowlands.
Belzoni refers to the man who discovered the tomb of Seti in Egypt. The sun could not rise without Seti.
I’m going to take the bait. Mt. Belzoni refers to an area of Baton Rouge, which makes more sense if you follow the lyrics for the entire song. Whether the area was NAMED after the infamous tomb raider, I’ll let Brett go down that rabbit hole…
Incorrect. There is no Mt. Belzoni in or around Baton Rouge, LA. There is one, however, in Mississippi. There is also a WJAZ in Pennsylvania. Lester is likely in Mississippi “at the foot of Mt. Belzoni” (with the antenna atop the mountain) and he’s receiving a call from Baton Rouge. With the right conditions, a listener in BR could tune in the signal. Since it’s “jazz and conversation”, he’s gwtting a call and saying “hello Baton Rouge”.
Lived in Louisiana for 12- plus years and never saw a mountain in Louisiana or Mississippi!!!!
I also was thinking Mount Belzoni could be the radio transmitter tower as the highest point at Belzoni.
That’s how I interpreted it as well. AM mast radiator antenna on high ground.
Things will never be the same.
Fagan was just using words from the south to assemble lyrics that generate an imaginary concept. He did a good job too. However, being from the Mississippi Delta, there are a few problems with these references. First: The town Belzoni Mississippi is pronounced “Belzona” by all the locals. Second: Belzoni is called the Heart of the Delta. The Mississippi River Delta below Memphis Tennessee was a giant flood plain for centuries until someone got the idea of building levees along the river. The land there about is flat as a pool table. Checkout any Google Maps Street level view. There are no mountains anywhere near Belzoni. Third: Belzoni is a long way from Baton Rouge or “Red Stick” as it is commonly called. The name is in honor of the native americans who originally lived there and would smash the heads of trespassers with clubs and leave the bloody red stick stuck in the ground beside the victim as a warning to future illegal immigrants. Of course if you prefer the French designation “Baton Rouge,” that’s fine too.
You want to relate to Dan’s and Fagen’s ”concept of many descriptions” don’t try, but he describes a very complex of music that many ”do not” understand. All I know is that Fagen’s ::Nightfly is a unknown masterpiece, along with tremendous compositions of the
group…Which is why Steely Dan is the best American group in the rock era….EASILY
I like to take his lyrics with a grain of salt. Of course, if you know anything about the BR area, you know it’s flat as a pancake. Regardless of where the fictitious WJAZ is located, I could imagine the sarcasm in his lyrics referring to a station located beside a garbage dumpster (mountain of garbage) out back behind a restaurant called Belzoni’s.
Donald Fagen’s lyrics are pure genius! In The Nightfly, the first verse is loaded with sarcasm! You don’t realize how depressed and broken the DJ is until the last verse.
So for me, Mt. Belzoni is the garbage dump out back of Belzoni’s restaurant. Almost the opposite of what the listener imagines.
It’s just artistic license.. Fagen does it all the time. Does everybody know the meaning of all his lyrics?? I think not. Who cares, as long as the music is perfect listening? The only problem I have had with Fagen over the decades is, he never plays Haitian Divorce at his concerts, which I consider his best work. But I keep going to his concerts, just hoping, because I have loved Steely Dan right from the beginning. And I wish I could tell him so to his face.
I got to spend an evening with him during the “Dukes” tour. Incredible guy, very gracious, humble, down to earth and not surprisingly, incredibly intelligent. Having spent time with him, I would say that you can’t take any of his lyrics terribly literally/seriously. He’s creating impressions and allowing the listener to fill in the blanks, which all of the best narrative arts do, IMHO. I can tell you this for sure, he would be bemused and slightly uncomfortable that were even Having this discussion.
It’s fun wondering at the lyrics. I just got his ‘Nightfly’ album (because I had no idea Between the Raindrops was his – always loved the song and always loved the Dan so the association for me was great). Played all eight tracks on loop yesterday throughout a seven hour car journey. Did it drive me crazy? No way. I could listen to their albums all day.
Sound like me! I can loop their music all day!
Ok so I will bite. I think “Mt Belzoni” was a reference to his big, tall drug dealer named Belzoni. Maybe someone in the studio waiting to serve him up. I concluded adoption because a lot of their music like “Time Out of Mind” was loaded with drug use…”tonight when I chase the dragon and water will change to cherry wine”…clearly, he is shooting heroin. This is just my two cents. I love the slick cryptic messages and sarcasm…l just love their music and will be a diehard fan for life!