Gaucho

GAUCHO

MCA 1980

MUSIC AND LYRICS BY WALTER BECKER AND DONALD FAGEN Lead Vocals by Donald Fagen Rythm Arrangements by Steely Dan with Rob Mounsey, Don Grolnick and Paul Griffin Recorded at: Soundworks N.Y.C./A & R Studios, N.Y.C./Sigma Sound Studios, N.Y.C./Automated Sound Studios N.Y.C./ Village Recorder, West L.A./ Producers Workshop, Hollywood Mixdown at: A & R Studios and Village Recorder Executive Engineer: Roger Nichols Tracking: Elliot Scheiner, Bill Schnee Overdub: Roger Nichols, Jerry Garszza Mixdown: Elliot Scheiner Sequencing and Special Effects: Roger Nichols and WENDAL Assistant Engineers: Barbara Issak, Tom Greto, Georgie Offrell, John (Doc) Doughterty, Carla Bandini, Craig Goetsch, Gerry Gabinelli, Rosa Howell, John Potoker, Marti Robertson, Linda Randazzo

Special Thanks to: Scott Luther and Fred Hull c/o Compal Computers Fabulous vintage electric guitars courtesy of  Richard, Steven and Lawrence Friedman. Piano Technician: Don Farrar Italian Translation: Victor di Suvero Cash: Leonard Freedman Clout: Front Line Management Album Design & Art Direction: Susanne Walsh Design Assistant: John Tom Cohoe Photography: René Burri/Magnum Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk, N.Y.C. PRODUCED BY GARY KATZ *Reissue Produced by Andy McKaie Digitally remastered by Roger Nichols, Digital Atomics, Miami, Florida Reissue Production Coordination: Beth Stempel Reissue Art Direction: Vartan Reissue Design: Mike Diehl

There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe... but not for us. Frank Kafka, in conversation Astute Danfans may have noticed the atypically long interval between the reissue of the Aja album, with its sleek new annotation by the "artists", and the final reissue album in the MCA series. Gaucho. It is our pleasure to report to you that, in the interval, certain intractable legal and artistic dilemmas have been favorably resolved, and that we are now free to resume and conclude this brief and pungent retelling of the Steely Dan saga, such as it was. The first thing we notice as we put pen to paper is that we may have given the actual Aja album proper somewhat short shrift in the aforementioned new annotation, inasmuch as the album itself is not mentioned at all until the penultimate para- graph, and then only en passant, as it were, to remark that too much had already been written in this regard. Whereas this is every bit as true now as it was then, nevertheless we retrospectively suspect that we may have done something of a disservice to those devoted fans who are particularly fond of the Aja album above all others. We also acknow- ledge that it would be somewhat impertinent, if not downright disrespectful or even contemptuous, to suggest or imply that being especially partial to the most successful of our old albums, at the expense of the other, less successful but also very charming ones, would constitute a failure of imagination on the part of said fans and perhaps even a betrayal of the essence of the Steely worldview, if such a thing could be said to exist. But the fact is that, having made that dire pronouncement, we both feel that an enormous burden has been lifted from our shoulders and that we are now free to walk tall for the first time since the big legal hassle began

back in nineteen seventy... whoops, there we go again - anyway., feeling as we do now, we judge that it may be well worth the risk of offending the odd culture vulture here and there in order to clear the air and move on to the task at hand. Bring on the Gaucho!!! A note to the reader: it so happens that these pages are being written as we are cruising in our nifty SD tour jet at 30,000 feet and due to land in Las Vegas, Nevada within the half-hour - and with us in the plane is our travelling tour psychologist, Dr. Clayton Dietz, Jr., who is suggesting that our reluctance to return to the discussion of the Aja album may in fact represent an unwillingness on our part to confront the painful issues surrounding the making of the Gaucho album, the (somewhat problematic) album itself, and its turbulent aftermath, which arguably persists to the present moment. In fact, we stand accused (by our own hireling "mental health professional", no less) of "blowing sunshine up the reader's asshole" for the purposes of postponing the inevitable moment of dread. In our own defense, we can only suggest to the distinguished Doc Dietz, Jr. that a) a PhD LSU is not worth the paper it's printed on (unless you're a basketball coach), and b) a man with a haircut like Clay's will never ever have sexual relations with a beautiful talented background singer with cobalt blue Galaxy Quest eyes and a captivatingly dimpled ensellure - this is a fact, not a theory. So, medical objections duly noted, we stand ready to make the plunge. Speaking of the Gaucho album proper, it can truly be said that never before or since in the sorry annals of pop music has so much been expend- ed by so few for so long in the service of so little -  or something like that. We come to the table ready and willing to concede to our harshest crit- ics that it is undoubtedly true that at some point in

this doleful enterprise we did indeed go well past it - the only remaining questions being exactly what "it" is and how blindly fast/excruciatingly slow we were moving at the precise moment when we crossed the line. For instance, let's talk about bass clarinets - you know the thing we mean, looks like a croos between a clarinet with glandular prob- lems and Palladin's spittoon. Or - never mind the bass clarinets, they're not important - let's consid- er for a moment the musical and neurological ramifications of a middle-of-the-project com- pound segmental fracture of the tibia suffered by one or more of the principals. Ouchie! Or - let's not quibble - let's talk about the approximately 320 reels of 2-inch master tape left over from the album and representing only the outtakes from the failed tracking sessions - a hundred clams a roll, babies - and you begin (but only just) to get the notion that there may indeed have been a  few snags along the way from conception to completion of the album. Ask yourself this: can all be well with the project when it is belatedly discov- ered that the chief horn arranger has a company called "Flying Monkey Productions"? Can it be right that said arranger and the chief tracking engineer have both been married to the same cantaker- ous woman? Lived and loved in the same Ver- mont country house? Driven, fer crissakes, the same late-model Benz? Had her fly them both down, each in his day, to La f**king Samanna on St. Maarten/St. Martin (the French side) just for f**king LUNCH??? All of this in the midst of the Coke Plague Years that ravaged the Manhattan sessions community all the way from Mikell's on upper Broadway to Seventh Avenue South in the West Village and all or most points in between. You book a session but you never know wheter the player you hired will be the same guy he was last time you saw him or much bigger or smaller or

barefoot or two days late or a week early or what. O the Humanaties! Such a desolation! That's when the business with the computer started. Roger Nichols had this toy - we thought of it as a toy - but one day he came to work and told us that the toy had become a man - one helluva man, in fact. A very talented man. A steady man. A man for all seasons - call him Wendel. A man who, in the absence of a usable track after a zillion tries with "real bands", could nicely simulate the most elusive elements of the basic track that we would need to bring our little song into the world, i.e., drums and maybe a simple keyboard part of some sort, and that's all. Because, once we had that - the toy, the man, the track - we could do all the rest with little or no problemo, thank you very much. Unfortunately, at this primitive stage of the evolution of the computer and its requisite software, even the most minute event had to be programmed in the gnarly and unforgiving 8085 Assembly Language, in which all relevant parameters needed to be described in its baffling hexagesimal-base numerical system, which ultimately became the only language Roger Nichols spoke or understood, at least for a time. As it turned out, the simplest imaginable manipulations - we are, after all, simple guys - ended up adding perhaps 7 or 14 months, all told, to our already Augean labors, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to our monstrously swollen budget. And so was born the era of sampled drums and sequenced music -  "The Birth of the Cruel", as we now think of it. History - read it and weep. At the time, it all seemed worth it, especially because with the eventual completion of the recording, mixing and mastering of the album would come the long-promised and much- anticipated Weekend at the aforementioned La

Samanna resort with two of the loveliest waitresses in all of midtown. Giselle (5'6", voluptuous, blonde, illiterate, loves Ahmad Jamal, etc.) was bright and brassy, while hannon (also  5'6", willowy and wanton, a perfect seventies 'luded-out f**kdoll, a walking DSM III, the reference standard of the day) was dark and sultry. Both liked the tropics and had had their bags packed since February (never mind of which year). Sitting in the bar by Gate 72, we could scarcely contain our enthusiasm for the Lost Weekend to come, and, as it turns out, we may have overdone the alcoholic stimulation thing while waiting for the ladies to turn up. Because, while the girls flew on, alone together, to St. Maarten/St. Martin (where they drank, smoked, snorted and humped each other into oblivion for three delirious days and nights), the boys, in their inebriated state, having argued briefly about the relative merits of Chico Hamilton (?) versus Charlie Persip (!) and then lost track of one another somewhere in the terminal, boarded  the wrong plane (in the case of Becker) or bus (in the case of Fagen) and turned up two to three days later in Kahului, Hawaii, or the Stanhope Hotel, respectively, each heartbroken, alone, penniless, with heads like watermelons and hearts like lead sinkers and, oddly enough, a hit single blooming on the charts. Go figure. ·  ·  · So it's goodbye to Freddie Fender, to bell bot- tom trousers, disco collars, Dr. Buzzard's Savannah Band, trendy Malibu (Don Henley still lives there), Tex-Mex decor and food, Donald Segretti, Nancy Spungen, the Golden Age of Porn, Schedule I narcotics, tall ships and the Wankel rotary engine, Jimmy Carter, and our Draconian, near-feudal contractual relations with various record compa-

nies, publishers, managers, hustling little business persons of uncertain stripe (not including the magnificent Irving Azoff), and all the rest. And not a moment too soon, inasmuch as we have decided to make a forced landing here in West Bumf**k, Nevada, so that we can rid ourselves of the appallingly cheerful and endlessly tiresome Clayton Dietz, who is even more irritating now that he applauds our heroic confrontation with our "shadow selves." Clay will be setting off on foot across the Nevada badlands, hoping to catch up with the Don Henley tour (eight horns!!! a potential psychotherapeutic bonanza) when they play the American Legion hall in Nogales, New Mexico, next week. Sadly for him, we have already jettisoned the orgone boxes (actually, form-fitting all-weather Gortex orgone suits) and the scented candles and the e-meters and surgi- cal clamps somewhere back near Barstow, Cali- fornia, and so he will have to get by on his wits and what native charm he can muster, if any. And, like him, our little tale wanders off into the desert to die a lonely death, a mere footnote in the already epic history of 20th century medioc- rity and/or underachievement.* - Donald Fagen & Walter Becker, 2000 *For those voracious fans who may be interested, an alternative (but equally valid and just as realistic and somewhat more upbeta) version of the events described in these reissue notes is available privately - just send $35 plus postage to Craig Fruin, P.O. Box 1838, San Francisco, CA 94159-1838, and you will receive a deluxe mimeographed copy of "Steely Dan - the Watergate Years", signed by Craig Fruin himself. Act fast - supplies are limited.

Babylon Sisters Drive west on Sunset To the sea Turn that jungle music down Just until we're out of town This is no one-night stand It's a real occassion Close your eyes and you'll be there It's everything they say The end of a perfect day Distant lights from across the bay [Chorus:] Babylon sisters shake it Babylon sisters shake it So fine so young Tell me I'm the only one Here come those Santa Anna winds again We'll jog with show folk On the sand Drink kirschwasser from a shell San Francisco Show and Tell Well I should know by now That it's just a spasm Like a Sunday in T.J. That it's cheap but it's not free That I'm not what I used to be And that love's not a game for three [Chorus] [solo] My friends say no don't go For that cotton candy Son you're playing with fire The kid will live and learn As he watches his bridges burn From the point of no return [Chorus] Drums: Bernard Purdie Bass: Chuck Rainey Electric Piano/Clavinet: Don Grolnick Guitar: Steve Kahn Percussion: Crusher Bennett Trumpet/Flugelhorn: Randy Brecker Tenor/Alto/Clarinet: Tom Scott Bass Clarinets: George Marge, Walter Kane Backup Vocals: Leslie Miller, Patti Austin Toni Wine, Lani Groves, Diva Gray Gordon Grody Horns arranged by Rob Mounsey

 

Hey Nineteen Way back when In sixty-seven I was the dandy Of Gamma Chi Sweet things from Boston So young and willing Moved down to Scarsdale Where the hell am I Hey Nineteen No we can't dance together No we can't talk at all Please take me along When you slide on down Hey Nineteen That's 'Retha Franklin She don't remember The Queen of Soul It's hard times befallen The sole survivors She thinks I'm crazy But I'm just growing old Hey Nineteen No we got nothin' in common No we can't talk at all Please take me along When you slide on down [solo] [ad libbed lines:] Nice, sure looks good, Hm hm hmm, skate a little lower now The Cuervo Gold The fine Colombian Make tonight a wonderful thing (say it again) The Cuervo Gold The fine Colombian Make tonight a wonderful thing The Cuervo Gold The fine Colombian Make tonight a wonderful thing No we can't dance together No we can't talk at all Drums: Rick Marotta Bass: Walter Becker Electric Piano/Syntesizer: Donald Fagen Guitars: Hugh McCracken, Walter Becker Percussion: Victor Feldman, Steve Gadd Backup Vocals: Frank Floyd, Zack Sanders

 

Glamour Profession 6:05 outside the stadium Special delivery For Hoops McCann Brut and Charisma Poured from the shadow where he stood Looking good He's a crowd pleasing man One on one He's schoolyard superman Crashing the backboard He's Jungle Jim again When it's all over We'll make some calls from my car We're a star It's a glamour profession The L.A. concession Local boys will spend a quarter Just to shine the silver bowl Living hard will take its toll Illegal fun Under the sun All aboard The Carib Cannibal Off to Barbados Just for the ride Jack with his radar Stalking the dread moray eel At the wheel With his Eurasian bride On the town We dress for action Celluloid bikers Is Friday's theme I drove the Chrysler Watched from the darkness while they danced I'm the one [Chorus] Hollywood I know your middle name Who inspires your fabled fools That's my claim to fame [solo] Jive Miguel He's in from Bogota Meet me at midnight At Mr. Chow Szechuan dumplings After the deal has been done I'm the one [Chorus] Drums: Steve Gadd Bass: Anthony Jackson Electric Piano/Synthesizer: Donald Fagen Piano: Rob Mounsey Guitar: Steve Kahn Percussion: Ralph McDonald Tenor: Michel Brecker Tenor/Lyricon: Tom Scott Backup Vocals: Leslie Miller, Valerie Simpson Horns arranged by Tom Scott

 

Gaucho Written by Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and Keith Jarrett Just when I say "Boy we can't miss You are golden" Then you do this You say this guy is so cool Snapping his fingers like a fool One more expensive kiss-off Who do you think I am Lord I know you're a special friend But you don't seem to understand We got heavy rollers I think you should know Try again tomorrow Can't you see they're laughing at me Get rid off him I don't care what you do at home Would you care to explain Who is the gaucho amigo Why is he standing In your spangled leather poncho And your elevator shoes Bodacious cowboys Such as your friend Will never be welcome here High in the Custerdome What I tell you Back down the line I'll scratch your back You can scratch mine No he can't sleep on the floor What do you think I'm yelling for I'll drop him near the freeway Doesn't he have a home Lord I know you're a special friend But you refuse to understand You're a nasty schoolboy With no place to go Try again tomorrow Don't tell me he'll wait in the car Look at you Holding hands with the man from Rio Would you care to explain Who is the gaucho amigo Why is he standing In your spangled leather poncho With the studs that match your eyes Bodacious cowboys Such as your friend Will never be welcome here High in the Custerdome Drums: Jeff Porcaro Bass: Walter Becker Piano: Rob Mounsey Electric Piano/Synthesizer: Donald Fagen Guitar: Steve Kahn Solo Guitar: Walter Becker Percussion: Crusher Bennett Tenor: Tom Scott Trumpet: Randy Brecker Backup Vocals: Leslie Miller, Valerie Simpson, Patti Austin Horns arranged by Tom Scott

 

Time Out of Mind Son you better be ready for love On this glory day This is your chance to believe What I've got to say Keep your eyes on the sky Put a dollar in the kitty Don't the moon look pretty Tonight when I chase the dragon The water may change to cherry wine And the silver will turn to gold Time out of mind I am holding the mystical stone It's direct from Lasa Where people are rolling in the snow Far from the world we know Children we have it right here It's the light in my eyes It's perfection and grace It's the smile on my face Tonight when I chase the dragon The water may change to cherry wine And the silver will turn to gold Time out of mind [solo] Children we have it right here It's the light in my eyes It's perfection and grace It's the smile on my face Tonight when I chase the dragon The water may change to cherry wine And the silver will turn to gold Time out of mind Drums: Rick Marotta Bass: Walter Becker Piano: Rob Mounsey Electric Piano/Synthesizer: Donald Fagen Guitars: Hugh McCracken, Walter Becker Solo Guitar: Mark Knopfler Trumpet: Randy Brecker Tenors: Michael Brecker, Dave Tofani Altos: David Sanborn Baritone: Ronny Cuber Backup Vocals: Michael McDonald, Leslie Miller, Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson Horns arranged by Rob Mounsey

 

My Rival The wind was driving in my face The smell of prickly pear (My rival-show me my rival) The milk truck eased into my space Somebody screamed somewhere I struck a match against the door Of Anthony's Bar and Grill I was the whining stranger A fool in love With time to kill I've got detectives on his case They filmed the whole charade (My rival-show me my rival) He's got a scar across his face He wears a hearing aid Sure he's a jolly roger Until he answers for his crime Yes, I'll match him whim for whim now [solo] I still recall when I first held Your tiny hand in mine (My rival-show me my rival) I loved you more than I can tell But now it's stomping time Sure he's a jolly roger Until he answers for his crime Yes, I'll match him whim for whim now Drums: Steve Gadd Bass: Anthony Jackson Electric Piano: Patrick Rebillot Organ/Synthesizer: Donald Fagen Guitars: Hiram Bullock, Rick Derringer Solo Guitar: Steve Kahn Percussion: Ralph McDonald Timbales: Nicholas Marrero Flugelhorn: Randy Brecker Tenor: Michael Brecker Trombone: Wayne Andre Backup Vocals: Valerie Simpson, Frank Floyd, Zack Sanders Horns arranged by Tom Scott

 

Third World Man Johnny's playroom Is a bunker filled with sand He's become a third world man Smoky Sunday He's been mobilized since dawn Now he's crouching on the lawn He's a third world man Soon you'll throw down your disguise We'll see behind those bright eyes By and by When the sidewalks are safe For the little guy I saw the fireworks I believed that I was dreaming Till the neighbours came out screaming He's a third world man [solo] Soon you'll throw down your disguise We'll see behind those bright eyes By and by When the sidewalks are safe For the little guy When he's crying out I just sing that Ghana Rondo E l'era del terzo mondo He's a third world man He's a third world man He's a third world man Drums: Steve Gadd Bass: Chuck Rainey Electric Piano: Joe Sample Electric, Acoustic Guitars: Steve Kahn Solo Guitar: Larry Carlton Synthesizer: Rob Mounsey

The Midi-sequense , on this page is Babylon Sisters.

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