| Steely Dan – Black Cow Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I think it's cool how he says "on the counter, by your keys, was a book of numbers, and your remedies." This references back to the ambiguity in "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" about whether a "number" refers to a phone number or a joint. It could be either: a phone number for a friend or a joint can "screen out the sorrow." But the fact that the "numbers" are near the "remedies" definitely suggests a joint, although again, it's ambiguous. I love how they are referencing themselves, and especially a lyric from the past that was itself ambiguous. And now the same lyric is ambiguous in the same way, many albums later! This band is incredible. |
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| Steely Dan – Rikki Don't Lose That Number Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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My dad told me that a number is another name for a joint. they probably mixed the love theme with the drug theme to create poetic tension and juxtaposition. I've been checking out a lot of Dan songs on this website and that seems to be the general theme that I've gotten from a lot of them. |
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| Steely Dan – Aja Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I like massglass' interpretation about Buddhism for sure. And the LSD stuff and the sex stuff. Put them all together and you have poetry! |
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| Steely Dan – Dr Wu Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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[Official Biography] Donald Fagen: " "Doctor Wu" is about a triangle, kind of a love-dope triangle. I think usually when we do write songs of a romantic nature, one or more of the participants in the alliance will come under the influence of someone else or some other way of life and that will usually end up in either some sort of compromise or a split. Okay, in this song a girl meets somebody who leads another kind of life and she's attracted to it. Then she comes under the domination of someone else and that results in the ending of the relationship or some amending of the relationship. When we start writing songs like that, that's the way it usually goes. In "Doctor Wu" the "someone else" is a dope habit personified as Doctor Wu. In "Haitian Divorce" it's a hotel gigolo. The details of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and "Through With Buzz" are vaguer but the pattern is the same." So, according to this Katy is a real girl, and the narrator is simply struggling to help her with HER addiction, not his. This struggling happens "all night long," and HE gets strung out because "Katy lies"; she is fighting the rehabilitation. OK, so the only lyrics that confuse me are the chorus lyrics: "are you with me Dr. Wu, are you really just a shadow of the man that I once knew." Ok, so what POSSIBLY happens is that when Dr. Wu helps Katy with the drugs, Katy and Wu fall in love! That explains why the narrator sees him as a shadow, as "crazy," possibly high on Katy's drugs after he has tried to help her! This would make it a plausible love triangle, and all the lyrics would make sense that way. Ooh, that Katy! |
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