excellent piece from the WSJ on how Becker and Fagen created the song – great stuff throughout, including – “We told him we wanted the horns to have a tight, romantic “Duke Ellington cloud” feel.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-steely-dan-created-deacon-blues-1441727645
Great article – the true Dan fans in AW will probably jump all over me for not knowing this; but I never realised that Becker & Fagan would relinquish arranging duties to other musicians….I appreciate that they would retain final veto, but all the same……
Really interesting, thanks for posting. It’s a brilliant track and song, and in the Afterword Dancast 2 out of 4 of us wanted to be the guy in “Deacon Blues”!
Losers!
Aaah that looks like a warm bath. Bookmarked for later.
Cheers.
I enjoyed that. Thanks.
The album was number 3 on the billboard charts for 7 weeks. Hard to believe that such an album would grace the charts at all these days. More is the pity.
Tiggs, I think it was more the life affirming positivity of the ‘I’ll be who I want to be’ couplet that appealed to me!