{"id":315931,"date":"2025-08-04T01:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315931\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T01:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:08:11","slug":"the-interesting-cut-that-became-steely-dans-favourite-aja-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315931\/","title":{"rendered":"The “interesting cut” that became Steely Dan’s favourite ‘Aja’ song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Steely<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Press)<\/p>\n

Sun 3 August 2025 21:00, UK <\/p>\n

There\u2019s something entirely contradictory about labelling Steely Dan\u2019s music as \u2018Yacht Rock\u2019. The label embodies something carefree, devoid of the stresses and anxiety of dry land life that can only be soundtracked by jazz-infused melodies. There\u2019s an ease to the entire genre that was non-existent in the career of Steely Dan.<\/a><\/p>\n

They were perfectionists to the most painstaking degree. The\u00a0yacht rock<\/a>\u00a0experience of being on the water, letting the wind blow through your hair with an ice-cold beer in hand, would be certifiably ruined by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who would most likely spend the majority of that time asking you about some minute detail in the song they just recorded.<\/p>\n

Time spent in the studio with Steely Dan wasn\u2019t for the faint-hearted<\/a> and it all culminated on their 1977 album Aja. It was undoubtedly a jazz-fusion masterpiece from the band, but with the time spent on each individual track, anything less would have been completely underwhelming. Their engineer, Elliot Scheiner, noted the difficulty of the process, saying: \u201cEvery track, every overdub had to be the perfect overdub. They didn\u2019t settle for anything. They were always looking for the perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

On \u2018Peg\u2019 the band famously blitzed through seven separate session guitarists<\/a> before they landed on the performance that they deemed worthy of mixing. But despite the intense labour given to the track, it wasn\u2019t regarded as the bands favourite, instead opting for a different, but equally as difficult child. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe title song I like,\u201d Walter Becker said, when asked about his favourite on the record. But rather than continue on to explain the genuine artistic merit of the finished product, he more appropriately descended into a monologue about the song\u2019s arduous recording process.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIt was an interesting cut. We\u2019d gotten this drummer we didn\u2019t know but we\u2019d heard a lot about named Steve Gadd\u2014he was flown in from New York. We had a chart for the tune, and it was like eight pages long\u2014three music stands in front of every musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWhat\u2019s on the charts is very specific for some of the players\u2014like the keyboards\u2014but very open for others. Like, there\u2019s nothing written for the bass player except the chord symbols, the guitar player basically works on his own concept, and particularly the drummer\u2014he really had to outdo himself on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The very fact that Gadd could step in on his first recording with the band and lay down that drum track could only be seen as divine intervention for the band. Not many people shared the same attention to detail as Fagan and Becker, but somehow Gadd seemed to slip into the lineup seamlessly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, there is one particular moment that sticks out in the memories of Steely Dan fans, which ironically, was a musical mistake. As his solo fades out, just before the fifth minute, an off-beat click is heard that drummers ever since have pondered over with admiration. They have tried, and failed, to replicate it, simply because it was a mistake. Gadd\u2019s stick slipped from his hands, providing one of the most nuanced moments in Steely Dan\u2019s history, and it all came from a moment Fagen and Becker had spent their entire lives trying to avoid. A lesson, perhaps?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Press) Sun 3 August 2025 21:00, UK There\u2019s something entirely contradictory about labelling Steely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,8589,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-315931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-steely-dan","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114967826159023838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}