in the new steely dan album, “2 against nature” the last track “west of hollywood” has a line that goes something like this; I was kid clean, She was Anne de Siecle. what does this mean, who is Ann?
Google search for “Anne de Siecle”. 24 replies; all displayed replies mentioned Steely Dan.
I owuldn’t get too worried about this… the Dan are known for rather obscure/obtuse lyrics…
I recently watched a documentary on the making of the Aja album. Remember the track called Black Cow? I finally found out that the Black Cow was a beverage known only to a particular neighbourhood in New York.
And Aja was the name of a friend’s girlfriend.
After you figure that one out, you can take a stab at the first song on the disc “Gaslighting Abbie.”
I know that “gaslight” is a reference to the movie of the same name and refers to deliberately trying to drive someone out of their mind. The song maintains the same theme.
The question is though, what is “Deludin”? The line is “some soothing herb tea…let’s spike it with Deludin.”
I did a google search on it but found nothing. Anyone want to take a crack at this one?
“Anne de Siecle” is a pun. It sounds like “fin de siecle,” a French phrase meaning “the end of the 19th century.”
Now, when a writer or poet refers to the “fin de siecle,” he’s usually referring to the decadent, bohemian life of artistes and disaffected types in the Paris subculture.
So, I assume the song is about a naive, young, wholesome, clean-cut boy who had a romantic involvement with an older woman who was jaded and decadent, and who showed him (for the first time) the pleasures of the “dark side” of life.