Steely Dan: Bad Sneakers
Continuing my focus on the music of 1975, today’s song is from album # 6 on my list of the year’s Top 20 releases. Katy Lied by Steely Dan was their fourth album and one of their best. This is the album that contains their classics “Black Friday,” “Bad Sneakers,” and “Doctor Wu,” but like most Steely Dan albums, almost every song is great. I could write about how much I love Steely Dan for thousands of words, including hundreds of words about how important this album has been to me across the decades, but I’ll keep it short. This was the first Steely Dan album I listened to beginning-to-end, thanks to a Steely Dan-obsessed friend I had in college. After that, I never looked back.
If you are interested in other years, check out my Year in Review series.
To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.
The Radio Faux Show 
I feel as if I comment on just about every one of your posts, but it amazes me how, more often than not, you post about an artist and/or song that I absolutely love. Katy Lied is a freaking astonishing album (as you said, “…like most Steely Dan albums, almost every song is great”). Pretzel Logic is the other of my favorite two of their albums–there’s so much going on both musically and (sometimes disturbingly) lyrically in every song. “Deacon Blues” on Aja is also one of my favorites, in part because it always makes me think about my father, who died when I was five, and who, I think, probably had a lot in common with the song’s “character.” Damn. Steely Dan. I could go on for pages. Impressive that you were able to keep your post short!
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Clearly we have very similar tastes!
I’m always surprised by people who dislike Steely Dan. I can understand if you don’t feel strongly about them but there are so many critics who despise them. I think their music is timeless.
And Deacon Blues is a strong contender for their best tune. Aja is probably my personal favorite of their albums.
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Pretzel Logic was always my favorite. We used to study Aja in music school. There was a made up term associated with it. It was called Moo Major, pertaining to the type of chord inversions they used. Take care!
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Moo major! Thanks for teaching me something new!
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I just read it’s spelled mu. But we just talked about it back then. Now, there’s sites you can go on and read about it.
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Inspired by your choice, I listened to Katy Lied today, and then after it was finished Spotify served up Steely Dan playing an Ellington tune on the Marian McPartland Jazz Piano show. I had forgot about her wonderful show. Here is the link for anyone interested https://open.spotify.com/album/1BSVyUNntttBSCsp6ABMy7?si=VE78_cgLQrWhFP7AaphGTQ
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Thanks man! I’ll check this out tonight.
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