I'm not yet retired, and so can't yet attribute my inclination to avoid, for a time at least, the great events of our time to a sense of ennui. Nonetheless I am so inclined, and so will indulge in another homage, this time to the work of Steely Dan.
I know of no work of Steely Dan I haven't liked. The duo of Don Fagen and Walter Becker, backed over the years by a legion of highly competent studio musicians, have been consistently good, and have managed to work at a high level despite what I think are the inherent limitations of popular music. Those limitations derive from the need that popular music be, well, popular. The songs must sell, and sell well. That may require pandering to the less artistic among the buying public, and the buying public in our Glorious Union doesn't have a high reputation. H.L. Mencken reportedly said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
Be that as it may, the music of Steely Dan has been consistently sophisticated, and has made use of styles and themes prevalent not just in rock music but in jazz, blues and Latin music while managing to sell very well. Many of the band's songs are classics.
I've always thought of Fagen and Becker as having more in common with the Beat Generation than with those who came of music-buying age in the 1970s. There is, of course, the fact that the name "Steely Dan" was taken from William S. Burroughs' novel The Naked Lunch, where it appeared as the name of a very special dildo. Burroughs was one of the great figures of the Beat Generation. Also, they strike me as having in common with the Beats an aptitude for poetry and a disdain for conventions, with none of the histrionic showiness seen in subsequent efforts of rebellious youth.
But in addition to that, there seems to be nothing at all of the hippie in the band's music. There's nothing psychedelic there; there's nothing about peace and love. Peace and love are more subjects of mockery or disillusionment than anything else. I think of Third World Man or Don't Take Me Alive when it comes to peace, and songs like Everyone's Gone to the Movies, Babylon Sisters and Janie Runaway when it comes to love.
The various conceits of the Me Generation are certainly present, however. But again when they're made the subject matter they're treated ironically. The album Gaucho is full of this sort of thing, particularly the song Glamour Profession.
It's unsurprising that the lyrics of many Steely Dan songs are seemingly unclear, and have been subject to interpretation. But what is surprising about this is that the lack of clarity is the result of clever artifice and metaphor. Through the use of artifice significant issues may be addressed in a manner which isn't self-important or banal, as are most efforts along those lines in popular music. The meaning of the lyrics of The Royal Scam (the song, not the album), for example, is far from clear on their face, but some thought and attention to them suggests that immigrants and the American Dream are their focus.
Ultimately I think one's preference for artists of the written word, or the written word when put to music, is based mostly on the extent to which one associates with the author, composer and musician. That is to say, the fan in that case sees the fan in the artist, has something in common with the artist, or think they do though they may flatter themselves. The fan may even dream they are the artist, or at least wish they could be like them.
Steely Dan's songs often are seemingly delivered by or made from the perspective of jaded, cynical, sophisticated observers of life. They're gentleman losers, disconnected and shrewd ("The Gentleman Loser" is the name of a bar in one of William Gibson's cyberpunk novels, if I recall correctly). They're aware of the faults of people and in society, aware of our many weaknesses and vices, and may even share in them but do so with a kind of blithe, knowing detachment.
Which may say something about this particular fan, in the end, and not all of it to his credit.
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