Top 15 Songs by Steely Dan

Few rock bands were as uniquely impactful as Steely Dan. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen blended jazz with rock, R&B, and soul in a way that was so incredibly sophisticated without becoming inaccessible. Their sound was polished to the nth degree without draining the music of personality. Other artists worked in similar territory—Boz Scaggs is probably the most obvious comparison—but nobody else was appreciated, remembered, or celebrated on quite the same level. Steely Dan remains beloved by regular listeners, but musicians seem to hold the band in even higher regard, endlessly dissecting the chords, solos, grooves, arrangements, and microscopic studio choices hidden throughout the catalog. Even to call Steely Dan a "band" doesn't quite seem right, as they were more of a perfectionist musical collective, made up of a revolving door of the best studio musicians in the world, playing alongside Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Nevertheless, their music was clever, dark, funny, catchy, and often impossibly well-played, which makes narrowing the Top 15 Songs by Steely Dan difficult.

15. Bad Sneakers (Katy Lied)

Bad Sneakers remains a relatively melancholic tune that never seems to get old, it has a loose, understated groove that makes it one of the easier songs to come back to on this rather divisive record by the band. The piano and Michael McDonald's backing vocals carry the track, while Fagen’s strange imagery gives it the kind of personality only Steely Dan could pull off. A wonderful tune to start of this list.

14. Do It Again (Can't Buy A Thrill)

Do It Again has become so familiar that it is easy to forget how unusual it actually sounded. The Latin percussion, electric sitar, and hypnotic keyboard solo gave Steely Dan a debut single that barely resembled anything else on rock radio in 1972. The song circles around a man who cannot stop repeating the same self-destructive mistakes, and the arrangement mirrors that perfectly, always returning to the same relentless groove. The song was an imediate classic, and has become one of the more iconic American rock songs of the early 70s.

13. Pretzel Logic (Pretzel Logic)

Pretzel Logic is bluesy, loose, and almost deceptively simple by Steely Dan standards. The slow-paced shuffle groove pulls you in immediately, but the lyrics—possibly involving time travel, nostalgia, or both—keep the song from ever becoming a straightforward blues exercise. Fagen sounds completely at home inside the arrangement, casually delivering one strange image after another. It feels like Steely Dan stripping things down without sacrificing any of the mystery. Like it or not, because this one does indeed fly under the radar for many casual fans, it's certainly one of the most interesting lyrical concoctions for Steely Dan.

12. FM ("FM" Movie Soundtrack)

Written for a largely forgotten movie, FM eventually became far more memorable than the film attached to it. The bassline is enormous, the saxophone is perfectly placed, and the chorus sounds designed to pour out of a car radio on a warm night. It is slick even by late-’70s Steely Dan standards, but never so clean that it loses its pulse. Few bands could make a soundtrack assignment feel this complete, and fewer still could casually leave a song this good outside their proper studio albums.

11. Black Friday (Katy Lied)

Black Friday is Steely Dan at their meanest and most direct. The guitar tone is nasty, the groove has real weight behind it, and Fagen sounds like he is almost enjoying the financial apocalypse unfolding around him. It is still meticulously assembled, because nearly everything Steely Dan made was, but this one has more dirt under its fingernails than most of their catalog. For a band commonly associated with studio perfection, they really could sound remarkably vicious when they wanted to.

10. Deacon Blues (Aja)

One of Steely Dan’s jazziest compositions, Deacon Blues makes it easy to understand why musicians obsess over this band so much. The chord movement, saxophone, vocal phrasing, and patient build are all immaculate, but the song never feels like a music-school exercise. This pretty sophisticated song is one of the group's longer tunes, perhaps losing the interest of some, but definetly not all. As much as musicians obsess over Steely Dan, this song usually finds itself towards the top amongst that sect of their fanbase.

9. Time Out of Mind (Gaucho)

Time Out of Mind glides along so smoothly that it can take a few listens to notice how dark it really is. The groove is light, the chorus is effortless, and Mark Knopfler’s guitar is folded into the arrangement so carefully that he never overwhelms the song. Not for nothing, adding Mark Knopfler to a song is pretty much a musical cheat code... Meanwhile, the lyrics appear to follow someone disappearing into addiction while convincing himself that enlightenment is right around the corner. It is one of Steely Dan’s greatest tricks: making something deeply unsettling sound completely luxurious, and so, so smooooth.

8. The Caves of Altamira (The Royal Scam)

The Caves of Altamira has become a fan favorite for good reason. The horn arrangement is huge, the groove stays locked in, and the chorus feels triumphant without becoming obvious. Lyrically, the song looks back at childhood discovery and the first realization that art can open an entirely different world. The real question about this song though is how come so few listeners actually know it? It's pretty damn close to Steely Dan at their creative best.

7. Aja (Aja)

Steely Dan rarely sounded more ambitious than they did on Aja. The song unfolds patiently, moving through several sections without ever feeling stitched together, before Wayne Shorter’s saxophone and Steve Gadd’s drumming push the second half somewhere almost unreal. Plenty of bands could assemble great musicians, but few knew how to use them this effectively. At nearly eight minutes, Aja feels less like a conventional rock song than a complete world built inside a recording studio. In a similar vein to it's sister track Deacon Blues, musicians, and particularily musicians who aren't too interested in rock music, have been absolutely infatuated with this song for almost 50 years. Just ask all the jazz studies drummers who had to work tirelessly to transpose Steve Gadd's masterful drum breadkdown for a zero-credit class...

6. Reelin’ in the Years (Can't Buy A Thrill)

Reelin’ in the Years may be the most uplifting song Steely Dan ever recorded, at least musically, and it is probably the best live song in their catalog. The guitars are explosive, the chorus is immediate, and the entire track has a kind of reckless energy that the band would gradually move away from. Most Steely Dan songs were engineered to reach their fullest form in the studio, but this one opens up onstage. You really have to hear those guitars tear through it live to appreciate how hard the song can hit.

5. Hey Nineteen (Gaucho)

For some listeners, Hey Nineteen may be overplayed—and they're not wrong, but for a lot of people, and particularilly us here at Melophobe, its just never quite got old. The groove is too smooth, the production is too precise, and the chorus remains too memorable to hold this song's popularity against it. The lyrics are undeniably creepy, following an aging man who realizes the younger woman beside him has no connection to his cultural references, but that discomfort is part of the storytelling I suppose. Becker and Fagen were great at writing unpleasant characters without asking listeners to admire them, and Hey Nineteen is one of their calmest, funniest, and most unsettling examples.

4. Peg (Aja)

Peg is about as catchy as Steely Dan ever got. The drum groove is perfect, the guitar parts sparkle, and Michael McDonald’s backing vocals again somehow make an already enormous chorus feel even bigger. The song sounds bright, polished, and almost weightless, yet every piece of the arrangement is doing something interesting. It is a highlight of Aja, one of the greatest rock albums of the 1970s and, honestly, one of the greatest rock albums ever made.

3. Dirty Work (Can't Buy A Thrill)

With David Palmer on lead vocals, Dirty Work sounds unlike almost anything else in the Steely Dan catalog. His softer delivery gives the song a vulnerability that Fagen probably would not have approached in quite the same way. It is painfully beautiful and strangely somber, with an almost hazy quality surrounding the melody and arrangement. Even on their debut, Steely Dan was already hinting at the more adventurous studio sounds they would explore throughout the rest of the decade, and into the early '80s.

2. My Old School (Countdown To Ecstasy)

My Old School is one of those rare classic-rock songs that never wore itself out. The chorus is instantly memorable, the horns arrive with perfect force, and the instrumental breakdowns keep adding momentum every time the song seems ready to settle down. It is bitter, funny, and strangely celebratory for a song rooted in resentment toward a former college. Every return to the main hook feels as satisfying as the first, which is probably why it still sounds alive after decades of constant airplay. Plus, when you remember that Chevy Chase was Becker and Fagen's original drummer when they started playing together at Bard College, somehow that makes this song even better. (Google it, it's true)

1. Kid Charlemagne (The Royal Scam)

Kid Charlemagne has everything that made Steely Dan great: a ridiculously cool lyrical story, a groove that never loosens, and studio musicians playing at the absolute top of their game. The lyrics follow the rise and collapse of a counterculture chemist, Owsley Stanley, turning a drug dealer’s downfall into something funny, cinematic, and oddly tragic. Larry Carlton takes the song to another level with not one but two of the finest guitar solos of the 1970s, both flashy enough to be memorable but controlled enough to serve the song. Even Kanye had to recognize the brilliance when he sampled it for Champion. Kid Charlemagne is just alive, and so infectious that it's tough to even put into words. It's the premier song on The Royal Scam, arguably Steely Dan’s best album behind only Aja, and the clearest choice for the best song by Steely Dan.

In no particular order, honorable mentions inlcude King of the World, Babylon Sisters, The Royal Scam, Night by Night, and of course, Bodhisattva.

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