# what's your favorite Steely Dan song?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 13, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553 "2012-09-13T00:10:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/21 "2012-09-13T02:13:06Z")
> [@JackieLikesVariety](#):
>
> a very tough call, but I’m going to say **Kid Charlemagne**.
In that case you might to watch [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylr2D4Pwn58&feature=related).
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/22 "2012-09-13T02:21:31Z")
Hey, Nineteen.
Hey, nineteen, that’s Aretha Franklin.
She don’t remember the Queen of Soul.
Hard times have fallen, sole survivor.
She thinks I’m crazy, but I’m just growin’ old.
Another Steely Dan song I like is Everything You Did, which namechecks the Eagles.
“Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening.”
The Eagles returned the favor in Hotel California with the line, “They stab it with their steely knives.”
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/23 "2012-09-13T02:29:37Z")
Steely Dan has the lowest percentage of bad songs of any band I’ve ever heard.\* A couple on _Gaucho_, maybe, but “Hey Nineteen” and “Time Out of Mind” make up for them.
I didn’t see “Doctor Wu” or “The Royal Scam” mentioned and they are among the greats. And for anybody who doesn’t think they rock, the live version of [“Bodhisattva.”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3T51qzqRBw)
Fagan’s “IGY” and “The New Frontier” have to be mentioned.
\*Steely Dan broke up in 1980 and never made another album since. All Dan fans agree on that. There will be no argument.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/24 "2012-09-13T02:30:42Z")
Every fuckin one of them. Man, I like their music.
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### Author:  [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/25 "2012-09-13T02:37:03Z")
No love for _Do It Again_?
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### Author:  [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/26 "2012-09-13T02:38:32Z")
Reelin’ in the years
Deacon Blues
FM
so much incredible music in so little time.
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### Author:  [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/27 "2012-09-13T02:41:32Z")
It’s a tough choice between “Reelin’ in the Years” and “Peg.”
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/28 "2012-09-13T02:44:55Z")
Are you with me, Dr. Wu?
AWre you just a fragment of the man whom I once knew
Are you with me doctor?
Blah blah blah and a pina colado my friend
Chain lightning, it feels so good.
Whats that one in e minor with the Maj7 in the melody
Not…Bad sneakers and blah blah blah bah blah blah blah.
The other one
Wait I got it.
Daddy don’t live in that New York City no more…
Fucking Skunk Baxter.
I’l always still love Aja for Steve Gadd on trap drums
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/29 "2012-09-13T02:48:23Z")
I do remember once my ex-wife was talking about football nicknames and, without planning it, said, “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, right?”
I had an immediate answer. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/30 "2012-09-13T02:55:01Z")
I do believe that my favorite Steely Dan song (and it has changed over the years) is now _Aja_.
> [@](#):
>
> Up on the hill
> They think I’m okay
> Or so they say
> Chinese music always sets me free
> Angular banjoes
> Sound good to me
> Aja
> When all my dime dancin’ is through
> I run to you
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### Author:  [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/31 "2012-09-13T02:55:15Z")
if you like Peg, this is interesting
[making of Peg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkBfdjkxsSs&feature=related)
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### Author:  [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/32 "2012-09-13T03:00:40Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> Every fuckin one of them. Man, I like their music.
Me, too. But my answer for the thread, due to some pleasant associations is **Your Gold Teeth**
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### Author:  [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/33 "2012-09-13T03:06:58Z")
**Haitian Divorce**
**Hey Nineteen**
**Deacon Blues**
In no particular order, but those are my top three.
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### Author:  [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/34 "2012-09-13T03:13:09Z")
> [@Jaledin](#):
>
> Oh fuck I guess I’m the uncoolest person ever among Gen-X-ers admitting to having a big freak on for the Dan – let me tell you now, it ain’t something you admit in public, boy! I almost got in a fistfight with a clubowner who said I looked like Donald Fagen with my black cashmere sportcoat on during a rehearsal at his bar.
Gen X-er here. I don’t get the hate for Steely Dan, I really don’t. Some of the complaints I’ve heard are that the production is “too good”, like they tried too hard? OK, whatever. The other argument is that “they gargle my balls” as Seth Rogen says in _Knocked Up_. What do Steely Dan haters know that I don’t?
I just discovered [King of the World](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJz0c981F7U) by listening to Jango. It’s my current favorite. I love that arpeggio-type guitar work in the background starting 30 seconds in. It’s a little hard to hear on this version, but it’s great.
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### Author:  [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/35 "2012-09-13T03:22:19Z")
Another Gen X-er…we’re supposed to hate Steely Dan?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/36 "2012-09-13T03:30:32Z")
**Aja** or **Kid Charlemagne**. They lose points for **Reelin’ In the Years** , which I absolutely loathe.
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/37 "2012-09-13T03:43:02Z")
If you’d asked me fifteen or so years ago, I would have said [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRGMEIX1a5Y), my favorite non Steely Dan Steely Dan song. Seriously, listen without watching the cheesy ass video and tell me that doesn’t sound like classic SD.
Anyway, I’d have to go with _Hey Nineteen_, with \*Cousin Dupree \*coming in as a close second.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/38 "2012-09-13T04:08:33Z")
It’s not me hating on the Dan – but just go ask some of your few non-nerd hipster friends with a straighface what they think about Steely Dan? Anybody “cool” is going to say they’re played out and pretentious.
Fuck them, is my attitude (even though I can’t stand Donald Fagen and his shitty piano playing together with his absurd ego and Walter Becker’s butt-rock pretensions). Only people I know IRL who know all the words are (a) drummers (b) bassists and © old people over sixty who listen to the local smooth jazz channel where Steely Dan gets play.
FTR I like smooth jazz – as do all serious jazz musicians I know. It beats the alternative – which means that fag alterna-teen crap with words
FTR I love Steely Dan. Chuck Rainey, Skunk Baxter, Warren Bernhardt, Steve motherfucking Gadd? That’s a fucking band when they did it.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/39 "2012-09-13T04:20:30Z")
Dirty Work, then Deacon Blues.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-steely-dan-song/634553/40 "2012-09-13T04:23:38Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> I do remember once my ex-wife was talking about football nicknames and, without planning it, said, “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, right?”
>
> I had an immediate answer. 🙂
Hey. No offense, but she kind of sounded like a keeper, man. That’s cool.
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