In last week’s newsletter, you got the chance to hear the first half of Reelin’ in the Years: The Steely Dan Story, an audio documentary that aired on BBC Radio in 2000, around the time of the release of Two Against Nature. Here in part two, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen talk about making The Royal Scam, Aja, Gaucho, and Two Against Nature. Along the way, they touch on their 1980s hiatus, their solo albums, and their return to touring in the early ’90s.
A few highlights:
The song “Haitian Divorce” is primarily inspired by engineer Elliot Scheiner’s quickie marriage dissolution during the Royal Scam sessions, but Walter Becker reveals a woman he eventually married had also previously gotten a Haitian divorce. Becker and Fagen also acknowledge their affection for the song “Mexican Divorce,” co-written by Burt Bacharach.
The rise of disco was on the minds of Becker and Fagen as they began cutting rhythm tracks for Gaucho. “We were trying to make tracks that had the steady forward motion and energy of disco tracks, but we had much more difficult songs than the usual dance music things, and we also wanted these sort of fiery, inspired, free-wheeling performances,” Becker says. “The disco records were being made by certain people using certain techniques, and we were trying to borrow those techniques and some of those musicians. It just didn’t work out that well.”
