Work Text:
[screech]
[clang]
[indecipherable moaning]
[ebrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr]
[screech]
...Aaaand that's a wrap?
I guess so! What was that, like, twenty minutes? Hey Tom, you got those fancy monitors in the booth, how long was that take?
(Uhhh, thirty-eight.)
Shoot. Guess we'll have to split it in two for the vinyl.
Or cut it down?
Well, I feel like that was a pretty solid session, developed pretty nicely. You got that harmonica in the beginning, and it all kinda-
I don't know, that beginning seemed a bit slow to get started...
[laughs]
You always have been the perfectionist, haven't you, Walter?
Well, maybe moreso back then...
...back when we...
[sighs]
Walt, what's wrong?
Uh, nothin' a bit of fresh air won't fix, I'm sure. Hey Tom, I'm taking five. I'll be in the booth later to lay down those tracks.
(Sure, sure. Uh, Mary, maybe get the drumkits cleared away for the next sesh or something, might needta...)
(...)
[door creak]
[footsteps]
Hey Walt, wait up, I ain't gonna leave you sad on your own out here!
You don't need to worry about me, Don...
But hey, uh...
Yeah?
How's this album gonna turn out, do you think?
Uh, I dunno, so far I feel... another noise jam affair, bit of a free-improv styling here and there...
And how many albums will this make now?
Well, let's see, all the stuff we've done since the new reunion, then everything back in the 9000s, in the 4000s, then our bunch of stuff after the Moment, then the original 9...
I might say, uh, in the 3,000 range? Overall?
Yeah...
[sighs]
Donald, I gotta ask you something that's been on my mind, I hope you're fine with me asking it.
Is there really a place for artists like us anymore?
.
Like, in what way?
The spectrum of music is, by all accounts, a finite one. Don't you agree?
Yeah, only a certain range of frequencies, but that's still en-
And then it breaks down further, into a limited set of tones, into a limited set of chords, into a limited set of progressions... and only a finite amount of words to write lyrics with.
I think it's fair to say that music's moved past all that though.
Yeah, it has, hasn't it? Because literally everything has been done. Literally everything.
All the notes, all the combinations, all the genres, all the combinations of genres...
When's the last time anybody's written, like, a good pop song? Without somebody coming out and saying, 'well, uh, I must point out that this melody you've written already appeared on a song you wrote a few thousand years ago...'
Feels like that age of music has passed by now.
Oh, long since passed. I mean, I think the downfall of basic pop music has, in a way, strengthened music. Forced people to move past the boundaries they've spent centuries exploring every nook and cranny of. Like, take us for instance. How many times had we used that damn mu major chord in our music? Even just our 1970s stuff?
[laughs] Quite a bit.
Personally, I think it's cool to look back and see how Steely Dan's evolved over all this time. We've really moved out of those crutches, into a wider sphere of music.
Yeah, and so has everyone else. Even that Robert Pollard guy eventually decided several hundred albums of indie rock music was enough.
Good, I always thought that stuff was shit. [laughs] Really, this kind of improvisation, the endless varieties of noise manipulation - it's like the final frontier of music. We've escaped the boundaries of our cozy home planet of cynical yacht rock, and we're exploring a whole universe of wonder around us.
Yeah, but we sure as shit ain't gonna find any aliens out there, Don.
.
.
[sighs] I'm sorry about that, Don. You know I love this sort of stuff.
But you know what I love more? That old good stuff. 'Can't Buy a Thrill', 'The Royal Scam', 'Aja'...
Yeah, yeah, I get it. Listen, Walter, I'm fine with you wanting to take another break from this gig if you need it-
Another hiatus ain't gonna change anything I'm feeling, and you know it. Just hear me out.
There's something that I feel is missing in music now.
I listen to this stuff from the 1960s and the 1970s - even the 2010s! - and I hear some adventurous fucking musicians. They're not doing noise shit, they're not doing improv shit, they're not doing anything like that. They're writing *songs*. They're birthing incredible new melodies from their minds. They're not living in fear of 'oh, maybe I wrote this song before, gotta change some stuff'. They don't care about all that. They're putting their hearts and souls into what they do, because it's something new, and it's something that's uniquely theirs, and they only have limited time on this earth to do it.
.
Last night, I was listening to a song on one of our old records. 'Deacon Blues'.
Oh, that song. [chuckles]
See there! You're damn right, Don - it was a song. It was one of the best damn songs we ever made. Full of soul, of meaning, of top-quality music.
How did it go again? Let's see...
'This is the day, of the expanding man...'
Yeah, that's it! God damn, Don, you sound just as great as back in the day.
Heh heh, I guess so...
Something was clicking for me while I was listening to that song again. You know me, Don, I worry about all sorts of stuff and I'll never know what it is I'm even worrying about. Well, last night, I was playing 'Deacon Blues' on my turntable and I was paying close attention to the lyrics, and it hit me... how much of a relic that song really is. Of life back when people were afraid of losing it.
It's of a man in a mid-life crisis. He has dreams, and he's afraid he won't get to fulfil them before he dies. He wants to be a jazz man, a real star. But he's a loser.
'I'll learn to work the saxophone
I'll play just what I feel...'
He hears the saxophone in his head, he sees the city lights calling for him... but he's afraid of risking everything to get there.
'Drink scotch whiskey, all night long
And die behind the wheel...'
This song, I think, is incredibly special. Because I think that sort of risk just doesn't exist anymore.
Being a musician feels like a curse now. Like an uphill battle. Our dreams have already been fulfilled, we can't chase after our hearts like we used to. What use it is to make art when that drive is gone?
.
Walt, you really do have a point.
I miss those days dearly. I miss when we'd get an idea in our heads and spend weeks, months, in the studio. Planning it out. Composing. Getting session players. Engineering everything. Spending sleepless nights mixing, to get that perfect tone.
We were afraid we wouldn't get the chance to get all our ideas out there before we died... but it was worth it to take that risk.
Because that was an incredible song. And I feel like... we just could've done so much more.
.
.
I think I see where you're going here.
And are you fine with it?
.
Totally, man. We've got all the time in the world now to fulfil our dreams.
Aw, Donald, I love you, brother. Come here.
Heh - man, Walt, I haven't gotten a hug from you in a while.
Yeah, I'm sure. Now come on, Don, let's get back in there and set up our guitars. Maybe call Bernard and see if he feels like popping in to do some sweet jazzy drum fills. Let's make a fuckin' Steely Dan song.
You bet.
[footsteps]
'I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be...'
[footsteps]
[door creak]