"Reelin' In The Years" as written by Walter Carl Becker and Donald Jay Fagen....
Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
But you wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in Hollywood
Is etched upon my mind
After all the things we've done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
But you wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in Hollywood
Is etched upon my mind
After all the things we've done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine
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Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
(The writer of this song is writing this song for a girl whom he loves but the girl has chosen someone else. The first two lines in about how the girl can feel that she is aging. "Summer" here refers to the prime of our life, i.e. 15-30 years of age. The girl here is, perhaps, fast approaching her 30s.)
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
(The girl quickly grabs on to a man whom she thinks she would be able to spend the rest of her life with.)
You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
(Here the writer of the song refers to himself as a diamond, how he believes that he is the best person or her, but she doesn't know shit. She wouldn't know the material value of a wad of cash or a diamond if hit her in the face, just as she doesn't know how good the song writer is for her.)
The things you think are precious
I can't understand
(The song writer disagrees with the man she has chosen and doesn't understand what he sees in him.)
CHORUS:
Are you Reelin' In The Years?
Stowin' away the time
(The chorus here is basically the song writier asking the girl whether years of partying and making the wrong choices have taken their toll on the girl.)
Are you gatherin' up the tears?
Have you had enough of mine?
(Here the song writer is asking if she looks back proudly at the hearts she's borken, at the number of man who were crazy for her. It also asks her if she had enough of the attention and love he showered on her, and the tears he cried for her.)
You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand
(Here the song writer is generally critical of the girl, of her self-assured wisdom. Crudely-speakng, he thinks the girl is full of herself, thinks that she is smart, but that is quite far from the truth. It also hints that all the ideals that she has during her younger years (college, seventeen) have turned to dust.)
I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in Hollywood
Is etched upon my mind
After all the things we've done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand
(This part is the song writer's reminisences on the good times that he and the girl spent, the things that they have gone through, the memories that would forever be in his mind). Those memories are now corrupted by what the song writer thinks is the wrong man chosen by the girl.)
Overall, this song is quite straight forward. This is my take on it. Hope to see some other interpretations of this song.
He's out there making music and found success doing what he's passionate about as opposed to this idea that he should "go to college; be responsible; get a family; be an engineer, etc." And instead of searching for other alternatives besides college that's going to give her meaning in life, she tries to find that meaning in another man.
He finds that she's fallen under the narrative that things will work out, but now that she fears she may not be sexually viable for a man she wants because age is fast approaching her, she makes an irrational decision to be with a man who instead isn't truly compatible with her on a deeper level. She doesn't understand the disconnect so when she's older this realization will be too painful for her when she realized she made a mistake.
I don't find this song to be some sort of revenge against the girl he once loved; it's possible he still most definitely has feelings for her. The song is a catharsis for the fact that what's happened is irreversible because the connection between them has been torn apart.
That's my two cents.
The first verse gives it away: "Your everlasting summer..." - obvious reference to "Endless Summer."
The "girl" in the song was a metaphor for the record buying public. Steely Dan had spent years becoming a top notch jazz/blues/rock act, and now the public wanted "endless summer" rather than progressive music.
"You wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hand, the things you think are precious, I don't understand." - compares the progressive music of Steely Dan to the simplistic music of the nostalgia boom.
"The college" likely refers to early 1970s college and freeform radio, where obscure artists were played, and the weirder, the better.
"Reelin' In The Years" - trying not to grow old by trying to relive endless summers of the past.
"You've been tellin' me you're a genius since you were 17" - obvious references to Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon.
"I still don't know what you mean." - I never got it. I'm into a different groove.
"The things you think are useless, I don't understand." - there was a conscious effort during 1974 - 1976 to reject all things progressive. Maybe it was the advent of the nation's 200th birthday? Maybe just a time? But, the record buying public came to feel that progressive was useless, and nostalgia was in.
Fortunately, the public came to their senses about 1978. But, can you sense the disdain the the SD lyrics, as they rag on the record buying public, who they compare to a wayward girl who can't make up her mind?
This may not be the correct interpretation, but it makes sense to me. Add to it that SD never wrote about the obvious, but about the obscure. Attributing these lyrics to a real girl just doesn't jive with their style.
My guess its that it's about Dorothy White. The weekend in the college didn't turn out like you planned could be a reference to the drug bust at Bard in (I think) 1969 where she, Becker, Fagan, and some 50 Bard students were busted by G. Gordon Liddy & the local sheriff. White was in the sweep, but was not bailed out by the college as all the others were, since she was visiting and not a student. Basically, a reheash of "my old school" is how I hear it.
"You've been telling me you're a genius since you were seventeen..." is just perfection. The only thing I hate about that line is that someone else said it. Ooh , I knew girls who needed to hear that.
a young man starts the song by talking about a girl who is immature and is childish rather growing up. She goes to school at the end of summer where she will leave her younger boyfriend. she holds onto him cause she thinks it will last.-- he then reflects on how he wants to marry her but she would not know what to do if he asked her. he then states shes not a goldigger because money cant buy her heart.
he then asks if shes living in the moment and soaking in this part of her life. because most people just live fast and work too hard. he thinks she is taking life for granted
the girl has been telling him shes smart and she wants to go to college to get an education. he doesnot agree with her at all. her first semester of college didnt go like she wanted to. he thinks college is overrated and doesnt agree with her once again.
then back to the chorus again....
he tells his story about how he put alot of time into her and he relish's the years they have spent together..she found a guy who does not care for her. he doesnt understand how she leaves him when he cares for her so much and the other man she found is a loser.
might be a little ramble in there but it sounds like a dream that went sour.
Surprised only 3 comments on this song so far.
Not really. As Donald Fagen has put it: “We went to college with Chevy and before we ever thought of the idea of Steely Dan we used to do pickup dates with Chevy on drums. He was a very good drummer.” Let’s fill that statement in with some more detail: the institution in question was Bard College, in upstate New York, in the late ’60s. Fagen led a band that cycled through a variety of names, including the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, the Bad Rock Group, and the Leather Canary. (Before you snort in derision at that last name, ask yourself if Steely Dan is really that much of an improvement, nomenculturally.) Fagen recruited Walter Becker, two years younger, after hearing him play blues guitar in a student lounge; Chase was one of a variety of drummers who filled out that group.
But a bunch of things would happen before Becker and Fagen started Steely Dan: they would leave Bard in 1969 (Fagen graduating, Becker not), peddle songs at the Brill Building (they did manage to place one of their songs, “I Mean to Shine,” on a Barbra Streisand album), play as backing musicians on a tour with Jay and the Americans, and move to Los Angeles. Only then, over two years after leaving Bard, did Steely Dan start. So while Chevy Chase earned himself a footnote in rock history, he was in Steely Dan the way that a guy who played washtub in the Quarrymen, Lennon and McCartney’s teenage skiffle group, was in the Beatles. Or as Becker and Fagen might put it: They’re Steely Dan and he’s not.
Hum, Donutbandit, the music business metaphor just can't fit : that song was issued in 1972 !!! And I never thought the Dan was progressive (except, maybe, on the song "Aja")...
Then, why do you say that disco has a "ugly head" ? It's not just Boney M and all that crap, disco had deep underground roots, and great artists that had nothing to do with the mainstream shit : Loose Joints, Larry Levan, for example. Did you ever mention that on the album "Aja", there were great jazz/funk/disco musicians, say members of the Crusaders ? Hear the sound of songs like "Josie" or "FM", or the bass work on "Peg"...
To end this, why do people think that every song, every sentence written by Fagen & Becker is "obscure" or "cryptic" ??? They also wrote songs whose meaning is really obvious and which don't need to be over-interpreted : this one, or "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "Dirty Work"...
One theory I've heard for this song is that he is taking a fictional man and referring to the man's daughter. The chorus fits this very well and the lines about the college work with this theory. Just throwing it out there. The one thing you can be certain of with SD is that there are always going to be some deeper meanings when the lyrics seem shallow. They never did anything shallow.
Im obsessed with the Dan as is my boyfriend, I shouldve known better!!
The line "..you been tell me you're a genius..I don't know what you mean.." is wonderful!
And the guitar playing! I used to think I could play a little but when I heard this I gave up. How're you ever gonna get this good?