| Steely Dan – Kid Charlemagne Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Agree with the idea that this song is about Owsley Stanley. One other clue is the name of the song itself--Kid Charlemagne. According to Wikipedia (not always completely trustworthy, but not too bad)--"Exploration of current online genealogy sites shows that the Owsley family line stretches back through Colonial America to landed aristocracy in England, and is related to many of the royal families of Europe; indeed, Owsley appears to be a direct descendant of Charlemagne." | |
| Steely Dan – Reelin' In The Years Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| AbFab, you have a mistake in the third verse. It should be "the trip we made TO Hollywood is etched upon my mind", not "the trip we made IN Hollywood...". Putting "in" in place of "to" makes it sound like an LSD trip... | |
| Steely Dan – My Old School Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I think Outlander has some of this right, but the key is to note that his girlfriend (Dorothy White) is referred to in the song in the SECOND PERSON (You). The reference in the THIRD PERSON (She, Her, the girl) refers to Bard College So when he says "I did not think the girl could be so cruel", he is referring to Bard College, since they allowed the drug bust to take place on campus and although they posted bail for the Bard Students, they didn't post bail for Fagen's girlfriend, Dorothy White, who was visiting at the time and got caught up in the drug bust. That's why "your daddy was quite surprised to find you with the working girls in the county jail", since the college did not post bail for her. In the line "Tried to warn you bout Chino and Daddy Gee", I don't know who Chino is, but Daddy Gee is likely G. Gordon Liddy, who was the assistant DA at the time of the drug bust. The line "I hear the whistle but I can't go" I believe refers to college graduation. Fagen boycotted his graduation because of the school's complicity in the drug bust. Oh and the Wolverine was a train that used to go very near Annandale-on-Hudson, now it is just a Chicago-Detroit train. The bottom line is this song is a kiss off to Bard College, NOT to the girlfriend. When you recognize that it is written TO the girlfriend and talking ABOUT Bard College, it makes more sense. Fagen feels bad about what happened to his girlfriend and blames the college for it. By the way, according to a 2006 interview with Rollingstone Magazine (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/qa/story/9519861/donald_fagen_gets_inspired), Dorothy White was still Fagen's girlfriend as late as the designing of the album cover for Countdown to Ecstacy, which is the album this song was on. |
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