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Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan
A literary and visual exploration of the songs of Steely Dan.
Steely Dan’s songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators—or imbued their characters with so much humanity. Pulling from history, lived experience, pulp fiction, the lore of the counterculture, and their own darkly comic imaginations, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker summoned protagonists who seemed like fully formed people with complicated pasts, scars they don’t talk about, delusions and desires and memories they can’t shake. From Rikki to Dr. Wu, Hoops McCann to Kid Charlemagne, Franny from NYU to the Woolly Man without a Face, every name is a locked-room mystery, beguiling listeners and earning the band an exceptionally passionate and ever-growing cult fandom. Quantum Criminals presents the world of Steely Dan as it has never been seen, much less heard. Artist Joan LeMay has crafted lively, color-saturated images of her favorite characters from the Daniverse to accompany writer Alex Pappademas’s explorations of the famous and obscure songs that inspired each painting, in short essays full of cultural context, wild speculation, inspired dot-connecting, and the occasional conspiracy theory. All of it is refracted through the perspectives of the characters themselves, making for a musical companion unlike any other. Funny, discerning, and visually stunning, Quantum Criminals is a singular celebration of Steely Dan’s musical cosmos.
Steely Dan’s songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators—or imbued their characters with so much humanity. Pulling from history, lived experience, pulp fiction, the lore of the counterculture, and their own darkly comic imaginations, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker summoned protagonists who seemed like fully formed people with complicated pasts, scars they don’t talk about, delusions and desires and memories they can’t shake. From Rikki to Dr. Wu, Hoops McCann to Kid Charlemagne, Franny from NYU to the Woolly Man without a Face, every name is a locked-room mystery, beguiling listeners and earning the band an exceptionally passionate and ever-growing cult fandom. Quantum Criminals presents the world of Steely Dan as it has never been seen, much less heard. Artist Joan LeMay has crafted lively, color-saturated images of her favorite characters from the Daniverse to accompany writer Alex Pappademas’s explorations of the famous and obscure songs that inspired each painting, in short essays full of cultural context, wild speculation, inspired dot-connecting, and the occasional conspiracy theory. All of it is refracted through the perspectives of the characters themselves, making for a musical companion unlike any other. Funny, discerning, and visually stunning, Quantum Criminals is a singular celebration of Steely Dan’s musical cosmos.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published May 9, 2023
59 people are currently reading
950 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
May 16, 2023
If you think you would like a book about Steely Dan with no fewer than 4 Pynchon references, you will.
May 13, 2023
If upon finding out what this book is, you have any desire to check it out, you too will end up devouring it and giving it 5 stars.
December 15, 2022
A sordid, associative, elegiac testament fit for a band like the Dan. Love, love, love.
June 2, 2023
I'm not 100% certain that the University of Texas Press receives state funding, but I feel like—as a small division of a public school—they must, at least a little scrap. In any case, I really like the thought that some minuscule sliver of Greg Abbott's hateful ratshit budget went toward funding the publication of a book (this one) that contains a lovely new oil painting of a bunch of dildos.
August 31, 2025
Great book for the hardcore Steely Dan fan. The author provides lots of familiar and some lesser known information about Walter Becker, Donald Fagen and various members of the band. Along the way he takes a stab at deciphering the lyrics and offering his take on what various songs mean. I didn't keep track of the number but he covers songs from every album, mostly from the first seven. Along with the author's musings are illustrations by Joan Lemay that humorously bring home the sleaziness of the songs' characters. My favorite drawing was 'fella' in the white tuxedo. Fans will immediately recognize the reference.
An easy and fun 5 star read with a star deduction for some occasional errors. A few times the author misquoted song lyrics. I first noted a misquote in Show Biz Kids (heavenly bodies? where on earth did that come from?) and a few others later in the book. The author also had his facts wrong at least once when he said the album Aja had two top 20 hits in Josie and with Deacon Blues. (And he even wrote a chapter about Peg.) Apparently the proof readers and fact checkers weren't fans of the band or very diligent. All of which leads me to a recommendation that would have made a very good book even better: an appendix for all of the lyrics (even the songs not discussed), and a list of where the albums and singles peaked on the Billboard charts.
An easy and fun 5 star read with a star deduction for some occasional errors. A few times the author misquoted song lyrics. I first noted a misquote in Show Biz Kids (heavenly bodies? where on earth did that come from?) and a few others later in the book. The author also had his facts wrong at least once when he said the album Aja had two top 20 hits in Josie and with Deacon Blues. (And he even wrote a chapter about Peg.) Apparently the proof readers and fact checkers weren't fans of the band or very diligent. All of which leads me to a recommendation that would have made a very good book even better: an appendix for all of the lyrics (even the songs not discussed), and a list of where the albums and singles peaked on the Billboard charts.
July 30, 2023
“Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car.”
Those strangely haunting lyrics, sung by exuberant fans at dozens of Steely Dan concerts over the years, hail from “Kid Charlemagne,” the first track on “The Royal Scam,” the band’s fifth album in as many years, released in May 1976.
But who was Kid Charlemagne? The song details the rise and fall of an acid trafficker, and is loosely based on a real-life LSD guru by the name of Owsley Stanley. The Kid is but one of multiple “Quantum Criminals,” mostly male ne’er-do-wells whose stories are shared in cryptic verse as told by a couple of musical geniuses named Walter Becker and Donald Fagan.
In the mid-1970s, my primary residence was a dorm room at Washington State University. The rooms were small, but every one had space for a turntable and a stack of LPs that invariably included one or more Steely Dan albums.
We didn’t always understand the lyrics — that was part of the band’s mystique — but were drawn in by the jazz-infused rock, the infectious hooks (think “Reelin’ in the Years”), the impeccable musicianship, the vaguely subversive lyrics.
In his book “Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan,” Alex Pappademas celebrates the “precociously jaded” band and its “preoccupation with human frailty and delusion.” Another reviewer describes Steely Dan as “the Grateful Dead of bad vibes.”
Fagan and Becker were perfectionists who definitely marched to their own inner drummers. That may help explain why, for example, they took a nearly 20-year hiatus from performing live starting in 1974. (And why I’m grateful to my brother, who offered me his extra ticket so we could hear Steely Dan together in the mid-1990s at The Gorge Amphitheatre).
As with all good rock ’n’ roll biopics, Papademas’ book is peppered with all kinds of wonderful trivia. Sample: Name the famous comic who once played drums for the band before it adopted the Steely Dan name. That would be Chevy Chase.
Steely Dan basically consisted of Fagan and Becker and a who’s who of grade-A studio musicians, from Crusaders keyboardist Joe Sample to solo saxophonist John Klemmer to a certain distinctive vocalist by the name of Michael McDonald.
With more than 100 interpretative paintings by artist Joan LeMay, depicting many of Steely Dan’s bandmates and even more of their songs’ protagonists, “Quantum Criminals” has the feel of a coffee table book. For me, it was also basically an interactive book because, after each chapter analyzing a particular tune, I would go online to read that song’s lyrics and then to youtube to listen to the original track. No wonder it took me so long to get through what’s only a 250-page book.
Here are my final dollops of Steely Dan trivia, some from Pappademas, some from me:
— Steely Dan’s first “quantum criminal” is a guy named Jack, who shows up in their first hit, “Do It Again,” from their first album, “Can’t Buy A Thrill.” Jack is a loser who, over three stanzas, kills a man in anger, is undone by a faithless woman, is undone again at the poker table.
— There really was a Rikki of “Don’t Lose That Number” fame. It’s probably a good thing she lost the number, provided her by Fagan at Bard College, where he was a student and she was the pregnant wife of a faculty member. (This hit is credited with “Rikki” breaking into the top 1,000 baby girl names by the mid-1970s.)
— How self-aware (or self-important?) can a band be? The spoiled youngsters in “Show Biz Kids” (Countdown to Ecstasy album) have everything they could want, including “the Steely Dan T-shirt.” (They also “don’t give a f*** about anybody else.”) Me? I was mostly mortified to learn from Pappademas that the repeated refrain that starts and ends this song is “Go to Lost Wages” — not “Goin’ to Las Vegas” as I had presumed all these years.
— I’m disappointed that Pappademas doesn’t raise up the most unfortunate pronunciation in any Steely Dan song. That would be from “Don’t Take Me Alive” off the Royal Scam album, in which the narrator (another quantum criminal!) repeatedly mentions that he “crossed my old man back in Oregon,” sung as Or-ree-gahn rather than Orygun.
— Only one Steely Dan LP ever won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Would that be 1978’s Aja? Nope, it lost out to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. How about 1980’s Gaucho? Nah, that year’s top album award went to Yoko Ono and John Lennon for Double Fantasy. Instead, the winner was Steely Dan’s very next album, released fully 20 years later in 2000, Two Against Nature. They beat out Eminem (the presumed favorite), Beck, Radiohead and an older major dude named Paul Simon.
Those strangely haunting lyrics, sung by exuberant fans at dozens of Steely Dan concerts over the years, hail from “Kid Charlemagne,” the first track on “The Royal Scam,” the band’s fifth album in as many years, released in May 1976.
But who was Kid Charlemagne? The song details the rise and fall of an acid trafficker, and is loosely based on a real-life LSD guru by the name of Owsley Stanley. The Kid is but one of multiple “Quantum Criminals,” mostly male ne’er-do-wells whose stories are shared in cryptic verse as told by a couple of musical geniuses named Walter Becker and Donald Fagan.
In the mid-1970s, my primary residence was a dorm room at Washington State University. The rooms were small, but every one had space for a turntable and a stack of LPs that invariably included one or more Steely Dan albums.
We didn’t always understand the lyrics — that was part of the band’s mystique — but were drawn in by the jazz-infused rock, the infectious hooks (think “Reelin’ in the Years”), the impeccable musicianship, the vaguely subversive lyrics.
In his book “Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan,” Alex Pappademas celebrates the “precociously jaded” band and its “preoccupation with human frailty and delusion.” Another reviewer describes Steely Dan as “the Grateful Dead of bad vibes.”
Fagan and Becker were perfectionists who definitely marched to their own inner drummers. That may help explain why, for example, they took a nearly 20-year hiatus from performing live starting in 1974. (And why I’m grateful to my brother, who offered me his extra ticket so we could hear Steely Dan together in the mid-1990s at The Gorge Amphitheatre).
As with all good rock ’n’ roll biopics, Papademas’ book is peppered with all kinds of wonderful trivia. Sample: Name the famous comic who once played drums for the band before it adopted the Steely Dan name. That would be Chevy Chase.
Steely Dan basically consisted of Fagan and Becker and a who’s who of grade-A studio musicians, from Crusaders keyboardist Joe Sample to solo saxophonist John Klemmer to a certain distinctive vocalist by the name of Michael McDonald.
With more than 100 interpretative paintings by artist Joan LeMay, depicting many of Steely Dan’s bandmates and even more of their songs’ protagonists, “Quantum Criminals” has the feel of a coffee table book. For me, it was also basically an interactive book because, after each chapter analyzing a particular tune, I would go online to read that song’s lyrics and then to youtube to listen to the original track. No wonder it took me so long to get through what’s only a 250-page book.
Here are my final dollops of Steely Dan trivia, some from Pappademas, some from me:
— Steely Dan’s first “quantum criminal” is a guy named Jack, who shows up in their first hit, “Do It Again,” from their first album, “Can’t Buy A Thrill.” Jack is a loser who, over three stanzas, kills a man in anger, is undone by a faithless woman, is undone again at the poker table.
— There really was a Rikki of “Don’t Lose That Number” fame. It’s probably a good thing she lost the number, provided her by Fagan at Bard College, where he was a student and she was the pregnant wife of a faculty member. (This hit is credited with “Rikki” breaking into the top 1,000 baby girl names by the mid-1970s.)
— How self-aware (or self-important?) can a band be? The spoiled youngsters in “Show Biz Kids” (Countdown to Ecstasy album) have everything they could want, including “the Steely Dan T-shirt.” (They also “don’t give a f*** about anybody else.”) Me? I was mostly mortified to learn from Pappademas that the repeated refrain that starts and ends this song is “Go to Lost Wages” — not “Goin’ to Las Vegas” as I had presumed all these years.
— I’m disappointed that Pappademas doesn’t raise up the most unfortunate pronunciation in any Steely Dan song. That would be from “Don’t Take Me Alive” off the Royal Scam album, in which the narrator (another quantum criminal!) repeatedly mentions that he “crossed my old man back in Oregon,” sung as Or-ree-gahn rather than Orygun.
— Only one Steely Dan LP ever won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Would that be 1978’s Aja? Nope, it lost out to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. How about 1980’s Gaucho? Nah, that year’s top album award went to Yoko Ono and John Lennon for Double Fantasy. Instead, the winner was Steely Dan’s very next album, released fully 20 years later in 2000, Two Against Nature. They beat out Eminem (the presumed favorite), Beck, Radiohead and an older major dude named Paul Simon.
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May 25, 2025Thank you to the University of Texas Press. It warms my heart to think that a sliver of my tuition went toward publishing a Steely Dan book complete with a painted picture of dildos. What starts here changes the world.
August 13, 2023
When I first stated in the workplace (a consulting firm), I had a minor crush on a colleague I'll refer to as Annie. I invited to a party I was throwing, when and where she noted my collection of LPs (this was in 1980). "Oh? Steely Dan? You're one of THEM...."
Soo, needless to say, I was attracted to this book like a summer fly to a flame. (True confession: I had read Donald Fagen's "Eminent Hipsters"- I found a similar role model in Jean Shepherd (The rich man's Garrison Keillor) and that my rheumatologist's wife in NYC is a psychologist specializing in treating stage fright, to whom Fagen had dedicated his book - and that we were (save Fagen) alums of the same university. But that's neither here nor there)
I found this work to be an almost Gonzo-like treatment of the Dan phenomenon. I'll try sparing the spoilers, but you can say that in their seven albums, the Dan focused a lot on the past and its effects upon present malaise, and the drifters, con men, ne'er-do-wells, opportunists, and cynics which we all wish weren't around, but are nonetheless inescapable. And Pappademas nails it - most of the time. The reason why I didn't bestow it five stars is that his analysis of songs is wildly variable. Some merit and get his thorough insight, while some in the Dan canon he (and his editor) appears to merely glance over or ignore.
There are some nuggets here, and I'll cite one. The author cites the influence of Larry David on the Dan's final album "Everything Must Go". David was noted for walking out on his audience when he sensed that said audience wouldn't appreciate his humor. It's likened to the Dan's reaction when, in their early touring days, they were the opening act for the likes of Black Oak Arkansas - but they didn't have the luxury of walking out at the time.
Another major point: the author points out several times the influence of J.D. Ryznar's "Yacht Rock" a comic internet send-up of "smooth pop music" set in the Aughts (read Michael MacDonald) , on the revival of interest in Steely Dan amongst the post-Boomer set.
I could go on, but hopefully you'll get the point.
Oh, and Annie? Last time I heard (about 20 years ago, mind) she was running a small communications and design agency north of Boston. C'est la vie..
Soo, needless to say, I was attracted to this book like a summer fly to a flame. (True confession: I had read Donald Fagen's "Eminent Hipsters"- I found a similar role model in Jean Shepherd (The rich man's Garrison Keillor) and that my rheumatologist's wife in NYC is a psychologist specializing in treating stage fright, to whom Fagen had dedicated his book - and that we were (save Fagen) alums of the same university. But that's neither here nor there)
I found this work to be an almost Gonzo-like treatment of the Dan phenomenon. I'll try sparing the spoilers, but you can say that in their seven albums, the Dan focused a lot on the past and its effects upon present malaise, and the drifters, con men, ne'er-do-wells, opportunists, and cynics which we all wish weren't around, but are nonetheless inescapable. And Pappademas nails it - most of the time. The reason why I didn't bestow it five stars is that his analysis of songs is wildly variable. Some merit and get his thorough insight, while some in the Dan canon he (and his editor) appears to merely glance over or ignore.
There are some nuggets here, and I'll cite one. The author cites the influence of Larry David on the Dan's final album "Everything Must Go". David was noted for walking out on his audience when he sensed that said audience wouldn't appreciate his humor. It's likened to the Dan's reaction when, in their early touring days, they were the opening act for the likes of Black Oak Arkansas - but they didn't have the luxury of walking out at the time.
Another major point: the author points out several times the influence of J.D. Ryznar's "Yacht Rock" a comic internet send-up of "smooth pop music" set in the Aughts (read Michael MacDonald) , on the revival of interest in Steely Dan amongst the post-Boomer set.
I could go on, but hopefully you'll get the point.
Oh, and Annie? Last time I heard (about 20 years ago, mind) she was running a small communications and design agency north of Boston. C'est la vie..
June 18, 2023
Made two old curmudgeons jump off the page via word and art. Respect to Alex for taking the time to recognize white artists lifting and profiteering from black culture and music; it happened long before Steely Dan and will continue after we’re all gone. Donald & Walter understood this before many others
November 28, 2025
2.5-3.0 stars out of respect for Donald Fagan & Walter Becker.
This is a tough one for me. I consider myself to be a Steely Dan fan, having enjoyed and admired their music for a long time. I’ve seen them in concert and regularly listen to every album, both Steely Dan & Donald Fagan solo records, as well as collaborations such as The New York Rock & Soul Review and The Dukes of September. For the record, I also often didn’t go to the bathroom when they played a Walter Becker song in concert … So I love and appreciate the music of Steely Dan. Why then didn’t I like this book? I think the answer is quite simple … it was the author, Alex Pappademas. Not him personally as for all I know he may be a prince of a guy. And unlike some, I liked the colorful artwork of John LeMay, although I understand why some may not.
Generally, I enjoy music because of how it makes me feel. I very rarely need or crave a deeper meaning of the lyrics of a song for me to find it enjoyable. Some of my favorite music is instrumental, as I learned, this was also the case for Donald Fagan, who was a huge jazz fan. I especially don’t typically crave deep dive into someone else’s interpretation of the lyrics of a song, especially when there are so many inaccuracies. As it relates to my enjoyment of the music of Steely Dan, Pappademas’s lyrics analysis holds little interest or meaning to me and doesn’t influence, in any way, whether or not I enjoy any particular song.
Bottom line is that while some of the book is interesting, Pappademas’s writing left me annoyed, impatient and often distracted … he may also be distracted because his writing certainly is often rambling and disjointed. I found myself looking to skim some of his pontifications, wanderings and conjecture to get to something I found interesting and engaging … you know, like something actually about Steely Dan! And that’s exactly what I did … skim read several parts of the book! And, although I have occasionally wanted to skim some books in the past, I can count on one hand, after amputating a few fingers, the number of times I’ve actually done that. In this case, I decided that was the best course of action if I was going to continue to be a big fan of Steely Dan and their incredible music.
This is a book less about Fagan, Becker and Steely Dan and more about Pappademas. I wasn’t necessarily expecting or wanting that and I’m extremely disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more.
This is a tough one for me. I consider myself to be a Steely Dan fan, having enjoyed and admired their music for a long time. I’ve seen them in concert and regularly listen to every album, both Steely Dan & Donald Fagan solo records, as well as collaborations such as The New York Rock & Soul Review and The Dukes of September. For the record, I also often didn’t go to the bathroom when they played a Walter Becker song in concert … So I love and appreciate the music of Steely Dan. Why then didn’t I like this book? I think the answer is quite simple … it was the author, Alex Pappademas. Not him personally as for all I know he may be a prince of a guy. And unlike some, I liked the colorful artwork of John LeMay, although I understand why some may not.
Generally, I enjoy music because of how it makes me feel. I very rarely need or crave a deeper meaning of the lyrics of a song for me to find it enjoyable. Some of my favorite music is instrumental, as I learned, this was also the case for Donald Fagan, who was a huge jazz fan. I especially don’t typically crave deep dive into someone else’s interpretation of the lyrics of a song, especially when there are so many inaccuracies. As it relates to my enjoyment of the music of Steely Dan, Pappademas’s lyrics analysis holds little interest or meaning to me and doesn’t influence, in any way, whether or not I enjoy any particular song.
Bottom line is that while some of the book is interesting, Pappademas’s writing left me annoyed, impatient and often distracted … he may also be distracted because his writing certainly is often rambling and disjointed. I found myself looking to skim some of his pontifications, wanderings and conjecture to get to something I found interesting and engaging … you know, like something actually about Steely Dan! And that’s exactly what I did … skim read several parts of the book! And, although I have occasionally wanted to skim some books in the past, I can count on one hand, after amputating a few fingers, the number of times I’ve actually done that. In this case, I decided that was the best course of action if I was going to continue to be a big fan of Steely Dan and their incredible music.
This is a book less about Fagan, Becker and Steely Dan and more about Pappademas. I wasn’t necessarily expecting or wanting that and I’m extremely disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more.
September 8, 2023
For a Steely Dan fan nothing will beat this book. Bliss. A beautiful, thoughtful volume, words and illustrations both. Alex Pappademas has outdone himself. So much love and respect — and humor, of course. El supremo.
July 31, 2023
“It’s like a dream come true.”
Quantum Criminals is page after page of complete joy. Fans of the Dan, rejoice! It reads as part SD fan magazine, part music criticism - 100% “so outrageous.” I can’t recommend this enough to fans of the greatest band since the Beatles.
Quantum Criminals is page after page of complete joy. Fans of the Dan, rejoice! It reads as part SD fan magazine, part music criticism - 100% “so outrageous.” I can’t recommend this enough to fans of the greatest band since the Beatles.
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March 31, 2024Not ashamed to admit that, like countless other people, I got into Steely Dan in the early days of the pandemic (October 14, 2020 to be exact, according to an old Instagram story I posted about discovering "The Caves of Altamira"), initially ironically, then over time sincerely, then after even more time super-super awe-struck sincerely. I don't really have a "favorite" band but no band since that 2020 discovery has inspired as much fascination for me in attempting to interpret what is endlessly mysterious and thought-provoking as them and the narratives within this seemingly contradictory sound. Which is a sentiment Pappademas describes perfectly:
"That's how it works: you show up expecting to appreciate them as kitsch, or to find out what the memes are all about. But before too long, if you have any feeling for craftsmanship at all, you'll start to savor the way the music's individual elements click into place, and the way the content cuts against those tasteful settings, like the phrase BLEEDING ULCER written in Coca-Cola cursive on a red background. Even if you know nothing about them, you begin to sense Donald and Walter's presence in the music, free-floating intellects welcoming you in without letting on that they're glad you're here, winking behind their shades."
BLEEDING ULCER written in Coca-Cola cursive. A+++. Or this one:
"...Donald and Walter seemed to be writing about a different kind of apocalypse, a world where the apocalypse had in some spiritual or interpersonal if not global way already happened, erasing all forms of human obligation and all standards of behavior, just like an actual apocalypse would. Their characters are paranoid, sequestered survivors, sealed off from each other in bunkers of the soul, or they're showbiz kids and sisters of Babylon losing themselves to indulgence as if there's no future. Typical devastation: you too might write yourself into an end-of- the-world story under those circumstances, even if you hadn't stayed up late smoking cigarettes and watching news of no tomorrow break on Ray Milland's face."
There's countless other great sections, I loved every chapter of this, the writing is really phenomenal and its a such a fun galaxy-brain dive in this music, making historical and cultural connections as far reaching as MF Doom and an incredibly moving section on how Walter died the same day that the Twin Peaks: The Return finale aired. You can bet that choked me the hell up!!! And the artwork is so funny and endearing as well. Can't say enough great things about this one! AND it makes the correct assertion that "Deacon Blues" is the quintessential Steely Dan song.
May 22, 2025
5 stars is not enough. How about 6 or 7 or 10. Or hey, 19 stars.
This book ventures through the Dan Discography, exploring the characters, themes, and instrumentals within most tracks on each album, juxtaposed with the real-world narratives behind the creation of such perfect music. This structure provides a wonderful opportunity to treat these short essays and illustrations as companion pieces, reading Pappdemas’ fantastic writing with the work of Fagen and Becker playing in the background. By the time I reached Aja and Gaucho, my two favorite SD albums (right now), I put the records on, sat on my couch, and read about the exact songs that echoed through my apartment at that very moment.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a more enjoyable reading experience.
This book ventures through the Dan Discography, exploring the characters, themes, and instrumentals within most tracks on each album, juxtaposed with the real-world narratives behind the creation of such perfect music. This structure provides a wonderful opportunity to treat these short essays and illustrations as companion pieces, reading Pappdemas’ fantastic writing with the work of Fagen and Becker playing in the background. By the time I reached Aja and Gaucho, my two favorite SD albums (right now), I put the records on, sat on my couch, and read about the exact songs that echoed through my apartment at that very moment.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a more enjoyable reading experience.
October 7, 2025
I’m glad I finally finished this book. I had been avoiding the last few segments, because I’ve never bothered to dive into Steely Dan’s last two records. I was worried that their early 2000s work would somehow change my view of their core body of work that I so deeply love. I was, of course, wrong. Steely Dan will always be Steely Dan, no passage of time can change that.
This book is essential reading for any Dan fans. My understanding of not only each record and song, but also every influence, experience, and enemy Donald and Walter poured into their music has grown exponentially. It’s also a very funny book. Highly recommended for Dan lovers.
This book is essential reading for any Dan fans. My understanding of not only each record and song, but also every influence, experience, and enemy Donald and Walter poured into their music has grown exponentially. It’s also a very funny book. Highly recommended for Dan lovers.
February 11, 2024
I’m about half way thru. The books is a great, high level discussion of Steely Dan, with stories about all of their best songs, and the reasoning behind them.
Because Donald and Walter were so introverted, a lot of the stories are best guesses, but there is a lot of good information about albums, producers, contributors, and of course Donald and Walter.
If you’re. Dan Fan, it’s the book for you
Because Donald and Walter were so introverted, a lot of the stories are best guesses, but there is a lot of good information about albums, producers, contributors, and of course Donald and Walter.
If you’re. Dan Fan, it’s the book for you
May 9, 2024
I feel like SD is an onion and this book peeled back some of the layers - which I enjoyed. But I feel like there’s so much more, but I can see that Fagan and Becker just smirked from the corner to leave it to us to figure out.
About “Do It Again”: “The first four notes pull you in off the street, opening a curtain on a room where the musicians are already playing. The first minute of this song feels like a story already in progress, even before the singer opens his mouth. But it also feels like the story’s been waiting for you, and now can finally begin.” (p 3)
“We understand now that there’s something unseemly about white hipsters who identify with Blackness, since they can never assume the risks that come with it, or give up the power white America affords boys born into it.” (p 24). This rings so true after reading Coates and Thurston and Baldwin.
“The ‘constellation of enthusiasms’ that brought Donald and Walter together also included the writings of Terry Southern, whose short story collection ‘Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes’…is full of deluded white protagonists who seek out Black authenticity and wind up clowning themselves or worse…The story (You’re Too Hip, Baby) is among the best character studies ever of the Very Special White Guy, who dreams that his mastery of cool handshakes might exempt him from his racial identity and the strictures that come with it.” (pp 25-26)
“Especially in the early’70s, Donald and Walter can’t stop rewriting one song, the subject of which is a woman who’s chosen the whole wide world, the world of experience, over a life with Mr. Steely Dan.” (p35)
Characters in SD remind me some what of Chekhov characters- ok, well, only somewhat but far seedier, SD’s “New York revue of schnooks (p 56) - someone who had potential but never realized it (or, for SD characters, pissed it away), or, as they reached the Royal Scam stage, “fugitives on the run from their own bad decisions.” (p 141)
And (I knew this but it’s still fun) there’s the tit for tat with The Eagles: from “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening” in Everything That You Did, with The Eagles response in Hotel California, “they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” (p 142). And I’ll have to munch on the thought “they (the Eagles and SD) were more alike than they were different” though I can recall greater cynicism is later eagles tunes and their solo work.
And the discussion of SD songs (Haitian Divorce; Pretzel Logic; Deacon Blues) “sung by actual black people (I.e. Burnt Sugar)…revealed new depths and serrated edges.” (p 147)
And the book states SD is that one of the most widely sampled white groups by hip-hop artists; and as it discussed examples, sampled tunes came wafting to me from the etherness.
“‘Deacon Blues’ paints a more romantic picture of the jazzman as existential hero, unmoored and doomed but capable on a good night of breathing his own irreducible truth through a horn. The important thing…is that it’s not actually a song about being that kind of artist; it’s about imagining being that guy. Walter says…’He just sort of imagines that might be one of the mythic forms of loserdom to which he might aspire. And who’s to say he’s wrong?’” (p 184)
On “Hey, Nineteen”: “what the automobile is to Detroit, the twenty year old woman is to L.A.,” a character suggests in Leonard Michael’s story ‘A Normal Evening With Audrey’” (p 205)
“Gaucho…[is] also a record about people selling themselves the dream of a good time, convincing themselves that a one-night stand is a real occasion; its characters are too caught up in the lifestyle to view it from any critical distance.” (p 200)
“Walter was hit by a taxicab during a late-night walk. ‘We were quantum criminals,’ he would say years later. ‘The car and I were attempting to occupy the same space at the same time.’” (p 213)
For “Third World Man,” the book discusses that was dredged up to replace “The Second Arrangement” (which had accidentally been mistakenly erased, or most of it- you can find pieces of it on line and more recently some who have pieced the pieces together) and that it began as a demo titled “Were You Blind That Day” and moves on. What the book doesn’t mention is Louciana Souza covered “Were You Blind That Day” which has the melody of “Third World Man” but totally different lyrics. How does a Brazilian bossa nova singer come to cover an unpublished SD song? I wish the book had addressed this.
Update 05/08/2024: I’m reading a review of Michael McDonald’s new book “What a Fool Believes” and in Donald Fagan confirms that he (McDonald) “came to rehearsal a few days later and knocked everyone out” and “There was a serious discussion about whether he should replace me (Fagan) as the lead singer, which would have been my personal preference. But for some dumb reason I was voted down. I didn’t insist, and I’ve regretted it ever since…”.
Aaaaacccckkkk, Nooooo!!! McDonald as the lead singer in SD would have killed SD for me.
About “Do It Again”: “The first four notes pull you in off the street, opening a curtain on a room where the musicians are already playing. The first minute of this song feels like a story already in progress, even before the singer opens his mouth. But it also feels like the story’s been waiting for you, and now can finally begin.” (p 3)
“We understand now that there’s something unseemly about white hipsters who identify with Blackness, since they can never assume the risks that come with it, or give up the power white America affords boys born into it.” (p 24). This rings so true after reading Coates and Thurston and Baldwin.
“The ‘constellation of enthusiasms’ that brought Donald and Walter together also included the writings of Terry Southern, whose short story collection ‘Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes’…is full of deluded white protagonists who seek out Black authenticity and wind up clowning themselves or worse…The story (You’re Too Hip, Baby) is among the best character studies ever of the Very Special White Guy, who dreams that his mastery of cool handshakes might exempt him from his racial identity and the strictures that come with it.” (pp 25-26)
“Especially in the early’70s, Donald and Walter can’t stop rewriting one song, the subject of which is a woman who’s chosen the whole wide world, the world of experience, over a life with Mr. Steely Dan.” (p35)
Characters in SD remind me some what of Chekhov characters- ok, well, only somewhat but far seedier, SD’s “New York revue of schnooks (p 56) - someone who had potential but never realized it (or, for SD characters, pissed it away), or, as they reached the Royal Scam stage, “fugitives on the run from their own bad decisions.” (p 141)
And (I knew this but it’s still fun) there’s the tit for tat with The Eagles: from “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening” in Everything That You Did, with The Eagles response in Hotel California, “they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” (p 142). And I’ll have to munch on the thought “they (the Eagles and SD) were more alike than they were different” though I can recall greater cynicism is later eagles tunes and their solo work.
And the discussion of SD songs (Haitian Divorce; Pretzel Logic; Deacon Blues) “sung by actual black people (I.e. Burnt Sugar)…revealed new depths and serrated edges.” (p 147)
And the book states SD is that one of the most widely sampled white groups by hip-hop artists; and as it discussed examples, sampled tunes came wafting to me from the etherness.
“‘Deacon Blues’ paints a more romantic picture of the jazzman as existential hero, unmoored and doomed but capable on a good night of breathing his own irreducible truth through a horn. The important thing…is that it’s not actually a song about being that kind of artist; it’s about imagining being that guy. Walter says…’He just sort of imagines that might be one of the mythic forms of loserdom to which he might aspire. And who’s to say he’s wrong?’” (p 184)
On “Hey, Nineteen”: “what the automobile is to Detroit, the twenty year old woman is to L.A.,” a character suggests in Leonard Michael’s story ‘A Normal Evening With Audrey’” (p 205)
“Gaucho…[is] also a record about people selling themselves the dream of a good time, convincing themselves that a one-night stand is a real occasion; its characters are too caught up in the lifestyle to view it from any critical distance.” (p 200)
“Walter was hit by a taxicab during a late-night walk. ‘We were quantum criminals,’ he would say years later. ‘The car and I were attempting to occupy the same space at the same time.’” (p 213)
For “Third World Man,” the book discusses that was dredged up to replace “The Second Arrangement” (which had accidentally been mistakenly erased, or most of it- you can find pieces of it on line and more recently some who have pieced the pieces together) and that it began as a demo titled “Were You Blind That Day” and moves on. What the book doesn’t mention is Louciana Souza covered “Were You Blind That Day” which has the melody of “Third World Man” but totally different lyrics. How does a Brazilian bossa nova singer come to cover an unpublished SD song? I wish the book had addressed this.
Update 05/08/2024: I’m reading a review of Michael McDonald’s new book “What a Fool Believes” and in Donald Fagan confirms that he (McDonald) “came to rehearsal a few days later and knocked everyone out” and “There was a serious discussion about whether he should replace me (Fagan) as the lead singer, which would have been my personal preference. But for some dumb reason I was voted down. I didn’t insist, and I’ve regretted it ever since…”.
Aaaaacccckkkk, Nooooo!!! McDonald as the lead singer in SD would have killed SD for me.
June 4, 2025
I loved this book. What an interesting way to approach a history/song explosion.
November 1, 2025
The best book ever about Steely Dan. A collection of mini-essays, ostensibly about the characters in Steely Dan's songs, but in the end a comprehensive look at the band, its music, and how it was affected by and in turn affected the zeitgeist of the latter half of the 20th century. Highly recommended.
August 20, 2023
One of the very best non-fiction books I've ever read. Hip, insightful, poetic, and fun. Includes analyses of lyrics and characters created in various songs, background info about musicians and recording sessions, and discussions of Steely Dan's place in the worlds of music and beyond - with illustrations. It'll help to be a Dan fan, to get all the smart lyric references; it'll help even more if you're the type whose been to (or would have been to) CBGBs, to get all the cultural references. It'll also help to have ready access to all the songs and song references (the book IDs many covers or samples of Dan songs that it was fun to conjure up at the moment!), to kind of play along, appreciate it all, and get into the spirit of the essays.
November 6, 2023
I didn't know about Steely Dan except that it seems the Kids These Days are into them? I heard the creators of this book on a local podcast and I was lured into reading it by the colorful pictures and I kept reading it because of the wonderful prose.
I don't know if I particularly like Steely Dan any more or less than I did, but I will say that the author's enthusiasm for the subject is infectious and I find that as I age I am more and more delighted to listen to people tell stories about rock and roll music. Especially if I can find a playlist to illustrate the subject, which I did.
I don't know if I particularly like Steely Dan any more or less than I did, but I will say that the author's enthusiasm for the subject is infectious and I find that as I age I am more and more delighted to listen to people tell stories about rock and roll music. Especially if I can find a playlist to illustrate the subject, which I did.
June 24, 2023
In the acknowledgements section at the end of the book, illustrator Joan LeMay, whose humorous, excellent paintings add so much to the work, writes regarding author Alex Pappademus, “the best words you or I will ever read about the Dan”. Truer words have never been spoken. There will never be another book about Steely Dan and their music that will surpass the comprehensive greatness of this one. If you are a Steely Dan fan, or just interested in the evolution of popular music, culture, Los Ángeles, and New York in the 70’s and beyond, you owe it to yourself to read this engrossing, tremendous book. Are you with me, Dr. Wu?
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May 31, 2023If you, like me, spent too much of your college (and post-college) years trying to figure out the meaning of Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker's songs, then this book is for you. If you, like me, have long been interested in knowing what was going on with Rikki and Dr. Wu and Hoops McCann and Kid Charlemagne and Peg and Katy (who lied) and Josie and Peg and many other crazy characters that populate Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker's songs, then this book is for you. Fun, interesting and thought provoking.
January 27, 2024
Was shocked at how much I not only learned but grew to appreciate my favorite musical act in a different way after reading this book. I'll never listen to Steely Dan the same.
June 12, 2024
I'll start with a bold claim:
Steely Dan is the perfect band
A milder claim:
This is an imperfect book that attempts to explicate the greatness of Steely Dan.
Alex Pappademas is a critic I've followed for a long time, since the Grantland days at least. He, along with Klosterman (who blurbs this book), Adam Nayman, Steven Hyden, Walter Chaw, and others, are critics who made me fall in love with criticism because of the quality of their writing.
This book is part criticism, part hagiography, and uses different songs as a structuring principle for each chapter. The chapters will often start off with a description of the song and an analysis of the lyrics to move into the sort of sociological analysis of what Steely Dan represented culturally, politically, socially, etc.
Dan were a complicated band who made complicated music that had been so perfected as to sound effortless, and that sort of control freak mode of perfectionism is what allowed them to stand the test of time. They were people who had such great control over their sound and their image, where Pappademas writes about how they'd insert jazzy licks and complicated chord changes into radio-friendly music to make it subversive, or how they wrote songs focusing on depraved characters and outsiders but sung them in a commercial sheen. This is a band whose whole aesthetic goal it seems was to straddle the line between commercial success and avant-garde subversion, enjoying the idea of being a celebrated rock band but also mocking the very idea by either refusing to play live for a long time, or incorporating jazz, funk, soul, and R&B into the music. One thing Pappademas captures well in each chapter is how they cultivated this aesthetic ideal that was built around being an outsider at the same time as having mainstream success.
Where Pappademas's book fails I think, is that its structuring principle is also its greatest downfall. Quantum Criminals lacks a cohesive unity in its structure, a grand sort of thesis that arches over the chapters, instead freewheeling from song-to-song and topic-to-topic. While singular topics such as Steely Dan's relationship with race and ethnicity do pop up in multiple chapters, I think it would have helped the book if it had singular chapters dedicated to these thematic or sociological subjects instead of going song-by-song. In other words, it lacks the sort of structural tightness and perfect sequencing that a Steely Dan album would have.
Still, Pappademas's writing is strong enough to mitigate this issue, and he writes with an even balance of praise and critique, not afraid to broach uncomfortable topics or to take the band to task for those topics. His portrayal of them as eternal Bohemians, outside of the norm but dipping into the mainstream, is a powerful one.
Also, Joan LeMay's illustrations are great and do a lot to enhance the book. I've no grounds to criticize artwork, but I liked it a lot.
Steely Dan is the perfect band
A milder claim:
This is an imperfect book that attempts to explicate the greatness of Steely Dan.
Alex Pappademas is a critic I've followed for a long time, since the Grantland days at least. He, along with Klosterman (who blurbs this book), Adam Nayman, Steven Hyden, Walter Chaw, and others, are critics who made me fall in love with criticism because of the quality of their writing.
This book is part criticism, part hagiography, and uses different songs as a structuring principle for each chapter. The chapters will often start off with a description of the song and an analysis of the lyrics to move into the sort of sociological analysis of what Steely Dan represented culturally, politically, socially, etc.
Dan were a complicated band who made complicated music that had been so perfected as to sound effortless, and that sort of control freak mode of perfectionism is what allowed them to stand the test of time. They were people who had such great control over their sound and their image, where Pappademas writes about how they'd insert jazzy licks and complicated chord changes into radio-friendly music to make it subversive, or how they wrote songs focusing on depraved characters and outsiders but sung them in a commercial sheen. This is a band whose whole aesthetic goal it seems was to straddle the line between commercial success and avant-garde subversion, enjoying the idea of being a celebrated rock band but also mocking the very idea by either refusing to play live for a long time, or incorporating jazz, funk, soul, and R&B into the music. One thing Pappademas captures well in each chapter is how they cultivated this aesthetic ideal that was built around being an outsider at the same time as having mainstream success.
Where Pappademas's book fails I think, is that its structuring principle is also its greatest downfall. Quantum Criminals lacks a cohesive unity in its structure, a grand sort of thesis that arches over the chapters, instead freewheeling from song-to-song and topic-to-topic. While singular topics such as Steely Dan's relationship with race and ethnicity do pop up in multiple chapters, I think it would have helped the book if it had singular chapters dedicated to these thematic or sociological subjects instead of going song-by-song. In other words, it lacks the sort of structural tightness and perfect sequencing that a Steely Dan album would have.
Still, Pappademas's writing is strong enough to mitigate this issue, and he writes with an even balance of praise and critique, not afraid to broach uncomfortable topics or to take the band to task for those topics. His portrayal of them as eternal Bohemians, outside of the norm but dipping into the mainstream, is a powerful one.
Also, Joan LeMay's illustrations are great and do a lot to enhance the book. I've no grounds to criticize artwork, but I liked it a lot.
October 1, 2023
"The inescapability of suffering requires detachment; it might be why 'cool' was invented in the first place. You either learn to work the saxophone or die behind the wheel."
Look, if you're aware of this book and inclined to read it, yes, it's probably for you. As Matt Fraction says on a back-cover pull-quote: "If you know, you know, and if you know... rejoice." But I think, more specifically, this book is much more for me than it is for my Steely Dan-adoring mother, on whom about half of its network of pop culture connections would be completely lost. And that's what I found most interesting about this approach - it wouldn't be altogether incomprehensible to someone around in the band's heyday, but it surely was written for an elder millennial audience (the author is over a decade older than me) to renew and revivify their existing appreciation for a band that looms so large over pop music.
Pappademas interweaves close readings of the Dan's trademark odes to desire, drugs, and despondency with illuminating biography and cultural context. But it's written in a language I implicitly understand, and filled with esoterica that requires no elucidation - virgin/chad memes, turn-of-the-millennium Rolling Stone covers, LCD Soundsystem and Oasis lyrics... hell, one chapter relies on you understanding the fundamental significance of MF DOOM's place in culture. For folks like me who are well-versed in both Charlie Parker and late-period Pynchon, this is a dream. Again, thinking of my mother, though... I fear she'd bounce off it, unfortunately. Maybe Grantland just happened to hit at the right time in my life that its sensibilities and style will forever be a comfort and delight to me. But I adored this.
I learned a lot - about Steely Dan, of course, but also about Cathy Berberian, the Brill Building sound, Jill St. John, and the many other tangential characters and intersections that drift in and out of the Steely Dan story. This is the kind of book I'd love to return to later in life, to see if my relationship to the albums and songs has changed, because I can see myself appreciating it even more with another decade underneath me. It's certainly changed the way I think of some of these songs, for which I'm quite grateful. ORGASM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Look, if you're aware of this book and inclined to read it, yes, it's probably for you. As Matt Fraction says on a back-cover pull-quote: "If you know, you know, and if you know... rejoice." But I think, more specifically, this book is much more for me than it is for my Steely Dan-adoring mother, on whom about half of its network of pop culture connections would be completely lost. And that's what I found most interesting about this approach - it wouldn't be altogether incomprehensible to someone around in the band's heyday, but it surely was written for an elder millennial audience (the author is over a decade older than me) to renew and revivify their existing appreciation for a band that looms so large over pop music.
Pappademas interweaves close readings of the Dan's trademark odes to desire, drugs, and despondency with illuminating biography and cultural context. But it's written in a language I implicitly understand, and filled with esoterica that requires no elucidation - virgin/chad memes, turn-of-the-millennium Rolling Stone covers, LCD Soundsystem and Oasis lyrics... hell, one chapter relies on you understanding the fundamental significance of MF DOOM's place in culture. For folks like me who are well-versed in both Charlie Parker and late-period Pynchon, this is a dream. Again, thinking of my mother, though... I fear she'd bounce off it, unfortunately. Maybe Grantland just happened to hit at the right time in my life that its sensibilities and style will forever be a comfort and delight to me. But I adored this.
I learned a lot - about Steely Dan, of course, but also about Cathy Berberian, the Brill Building sound, Jill St. John, and the many other tangential characters and intersections that drift in and out of the Steely Dan story. This is the kind of book I'd love to return to later in life, to see if my relationship to the albums and songs has changed, because I can see myself appreciating it even more with another decade underneath me. It's certainly changed the way I think of some of these songs, for which I'm quite grateful. ORGASM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
September 13, 2023
I'm a fan of Steely Dan, and that is a prerequisite for potential readers of this book, but I would even go a bit further than that, for the book to be fully appreciated the reader needs to be a super fan.
Initially there is a history of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan’s band, and then a chapter devoted to very many of their songs, the stories about them and the characters who inhabit them.
There's the famous chorus of "Dirty Work," for example, but it is revealed that the man singing lead vocals on that track, David Palmer, once played a high school show alongside The Velvet Underground under that name.
And that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was written for the wife of a faculty member at Bard College, where Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen studied.
Initially there is a history of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan’s band, and then a chapter devoted to very many of their songs, the stories about them and the characters who inhabit them.
There's the famous chorus of "Dirty Work," for example, but it is revealed that the man singing lead vocals on that track, David Palmer, once played a high school show alongside The Velvet Underground under that name.
The first person you meet in a Steely Dan song is a guy named Jack. In the first verse of “Do It Again,” Jack kills a man in anger and then evades death by hanging because it’s the hangman’s day off. In the second verse Jack is undone by his devotion to a faithless woman, and then in the third verse he’s undone again at the poker table. Jack is both the first Steely Dan protagonist and the archetypal one. He’s a loser strapped to the karmic wheel, forever slipping out of one trap set by his own dumb desires..
And that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was written for the wife of a faculty member at Bard College, where Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen studied.
In “Haitian Divorce,” Babs and Clean Willie are lovers who marry in a fever, hit the rocks before the first verse of the song they’re in is even over, and go abroad for a quickie solution. In the ’60s this kind of uncoupling usually involved a flight south and a ride across the border to Juárez, where Americans could establish residency, obtain a divorce, and, if necessary, get married again, all in the space of an afternoon.
September 7, 2025
This book feels like it was written with me in mind. *Quantum Criminals* is not a biography, it’s a series of essays on Steely Dan, each using a specific song (chronological order) in their catalog as a jumping off point to talk about their influences, approach, the lyrics, and Donald and Walter. I *loved* this format: read a chapter, catch what song they are discussing, pop that on, back to the book. I would happily read more books like this, especially about bands that I’ve struggled to “get”.
More than the format though, the way the authors frame Steely Dan’s status in the culture captures how I have felt about the band. For people my age, growing up on indie rock bands that emphasized a sincere, low-fi / low-effort authenticity, the glossy sound of Steely Dan and other 70s soft rock bands reads as fake, overly produced, everything anathema to “real music”. Of course, as you get older, you realize that making sure everyone’s wearing flannel or having songs that start with someone plugging a guitar into a hot amp, studio chatter, or the drummer counting them in, are no less “fake”: these are all choices being made to deliberately convey some kind vibe.
With the Dan / yacht rock renaissance I’ve come to appreciate their music more, although I still wonder to what extent my enjoyment is sincere. That said, they have undeniable bangers. “Peg” does something weird to my brain, it feels impossibly groovy; reminds me of Mario kart music. And lyrically what they are doing is much more complex than I realized, more in the Dylan vein of songwriting.
Would recommend the behind the album documentary on YouTube about Aja to pair with this book.
More than the format though, the way the authors frame Steely Dan’s status in the culture captures how I have felt about the band. For people my age, growing up on indie rock bands that emphasized a sincere, low-fi / low-effort authenticity, the glossy sound of Steely Dan and other 70s soft rock bands reads as fake, overly produced, everything anathema to “real music”. Of course, as you get older, you realize that making sure everyone’s wearing flannel or having songs that start with someone plugging a guitar into a hot amp, studio chatter, or the drummer counting them in, are no less “fake”: these are all choices being made to deliberately convey some kind vibe.
With the Dan / yacht rock renaissance I’ve come to appreciate their music more, although I still wonder to what extent my enjoyment is sincere. That said, they have undeniable bangers. “Peg” does something weird to my brain, it feels impossibly groovy; reminds me of Mario kart music. And lyrically what they are doing is much more complex than I realized, more in the Dylan vein of songwriting.
Would recommend the behind the album documentary on YouTube about Aja to pair with this book.
January 22, 2026
Quantum Criminals is mandatory reading for serious Steely Dan fans. I love the Dan and this book was so interesting to me, but even I found some parts of it to be totally crazy. Some of the song analyses were so out there that I wondered if the author pulled some observations out of his ass or if he was high when he wrote the text. I was surprised to find out I'd been singing the wrong lyrics to some songs. For example, in "Haitian Divorce," I always thought the lyrics, "Now we dial it back / Now we fade to black" but, according to Pappademas, the lyrics are "Now we dolly back / Now we fade to black." Huh! (However, I did notice an error in the lyrics for "My Rival" in the book. The book says "The milk truck SLID into my space" but the song really says "The milk truck EASED into my space" but I digress. I love that this book covers not just the major songs by Steely Dan like "Peg" and "Deacon Blues" but also the non-hits like "Pearl of the Quarter" and "Through with Buzz." I was disappointed that the chapter on "Black Cow" focused more on the rappers who sampled the song and got sued by Steely Dan for doing so than on the song itself, but the author made up for that slight by writing a wonderful chapter on "I Got the News" and focusing on Michael McDonald's contribution to that song. Broadway duchess! Yes!
Pappademas did a deep dive here on the Dan songs and the colorful cast of characters they write about. Just one last note: there's also a great version of "Caves lf Altamira" by a group called Perri (who used to be backup singers for Anita Baker, I believe) that the author should check out.
Pappademas did a deep dive here on the Dan songs and the colorful cast of characters they write about. Just one last note: there's also a great version of "Caves lf Altamira" by a group called Perri (who used to be backup singers for Anita Baker, I believe) that the author should check out.
January 13, 2025
Three stars for Dan fans, one or two stars for everyone else that doesn’t have a journalism degree. I would have preferred a bit more straight up history, with some stories sprinkled throughout. There’s some of that here, but that takes second place to a literary critique of those arcane lyrics. Some of that is really interesting (G. Gordon Lindy in My Old School?), and some seems to be the author’s imagination about what he thinks is going on. And the author’s take on both the lyrics and the music uses up a lot of words. One sentence from the “Babylon Sisters” essay:
“Depending on your taste in Steely Dan songs, Gaucho is either the point where Donald and Walter’s quest for a flawless sound finally sucked the last of the oxygen out of their music, or it’s the point where a fundamentally satirical musical project - dark songs about human appetite and longing wedded to self-consciously slick music - finally reaches its antiseptic apotheosis.”
I don’t know about you, but any sentence that contains “apotheosis” warrants the BS flag. Adding to that, references to some of the boys’ literary inspirations (most of which also deserve a BS flag) are frequent and lengthy.
Overall, however, I’m happier to have this book as a reference than not to have it. But like many of Steely Dan’s songs that are probably better enjoyed without dwelling too much on what’s actually going on in the lyrics, it’s the long winded dissection and conjecture about those lyrics that make the book a bit of a chore to read.
“Depending on your taste in Steely Dan songs, Gaucho is either the point where Donald and Walter’s quest for a flawless sound finally sucked the last of the oxygen out of their music, or it’s the point where a fundamentally satirical musical project - dark songs about human appetite and longing wedded to self-consciously slick music - finally reaches its antiseptic apotheosis.”
I don’t know about you, but any sentence that contains “apotheosis” warrants the BS flag. Adding to that, references to some of the boys’ literary inspirations (most of which also deserve a BS flag) are frequent and lengthy.
Overall, however, I’m happier to have this book as a reference than not to have it. But like many of Steely Dan’s songs that are probably better enjoyed without dwelling too much on what’s actually going on in the lyrics, it’s the long winded dissection and conjecture about those lyrics that make the book a bit of a chore to read.
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