They gained a reputation for delivering music that didn’t skimp on the complexity. Yet that didn’t stop Steely Dan from consistently frequenting the pop singles charts during their extraordinary career.
Their last Top 40 hit in the US reflected, at least lyrically, some of the darkness swirling around the group at that time. Not long after, they’d go on a recording hiatus of nearly two decades.
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Pop Dan
Right from the start, pop music fans found something to love in the jazzy textures and anti-rock song structures favored by Steely Dan founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ In The Years”, the first two singles off their 1972 debut album Can’t Buy A Thrill, hit No. 6 and No. 11, respectively, on the pop charts.
As the years passed, Fagen and Becker gradually phased out all other permanent members of the group. They instead relied on session musicians, whom they put through the paces to achieve the sonic excellence that could be found on their records. (Steely Dan also largely ceased to exist as a touring outfit once this transpired.)
The hits, both commercial and critical, kept coming for the Dan. Many point to the 1977 album Aja as a high-water mark for them. But after not taking more than a year between any of their other previous albums, the follow-up, Gaucho, wouldn’t appear until 1980.
Hidden Darkness
Personal problems that beset Walter Becker had a great deal to do with the extended time taken to record and release Gaucho. Remember that these were two guys who weren’t going to settle for releasing anything that wasn’t up to their highest standards. If one of the two wasn’t at their best, it was inevitably going to slow things down.
Nonetheless, when the album arrived, you would have been hard-pressed to locate any signs of strain in the music, which was often upbeat and playful. “Time Out Of Mind”, the second single from the album, delivered a perky rhythm, soulful horns, and some insinuating guitar licks from a guesting Mark Knopfler. With that peppy whoosh rushing by you, you might not even notice the line, “Tonight when I chase the dragon.”
“Mind” Games
The aforementioned line often refers to those taking heroin. And Walter Becker was dealing with his own drug problems around that time. In the context of the rest of the lyrics, which otherwise seem to speak of a positive transformation being undergone by the narrator, the line doesn’t come off as all that dark.
Certainly, it didn’t stop pop radio from glomming onto the track. “Time Out Of Mind” made it to No. 22 in 1981. That gave Steely Dan an even ten Top 40 singles in America. And that’s where that number would remain.
Following Gaucho, Fagen briefly took the solo path. Becker, after cleaning himself up a bit, began working as a session player and producer. The pair would eventually reunite, first for live performances and then with a new Steely Dan record in 2000. And although that album, Two Against Nature, earned Fagen and Becker an Album of the Year Grammy, it failed to churn out any Top 40 hits.
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