Pretzel Logic

Man! Every time I think that a Steely Dan song is above board...I do some research and the bottom falls out! (This is another one of those times.)

If you read some of the earlier posts, mark36 has it right: Pretzel Logic is twisted logic. Or as the Open Dictionary puts it, faulty or circular reasoning that does not stand up to scrutiny. And that is really what this song is all about!

Take a look at the lyrics, find some of the references and see if you agree with me.

The first verse talks about the creators of Amos and Andy, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden in the 1920s and 30s. If you look up the somewhat notorious show or read the Wikipedia entry, you'll know three things: 1. The creators of Amos and Andy were white, not black. 2. They were both familiar with the minstrel traditions and met in the south (Durham, North Carolina). 3. Prior to each show, Gosden and Corell recorded the show on records and were then able to distribute the records to radio studios. According to the article, Amos 'n' Andy was the first radio program to be distributed by syndication in the US and was a huge hit.

The pretzel logic to this verse is the fact that Correll and Gosden, smart, professional white men, made a fortune playing naive, less than professional black men on the radio. Basically, the public was scammed into believing that two white men were playing two black men.

The second verse is about Napoleon Hill, a self-help author from the late 1920s through the 1940s. He might be described as a failed businessman (and con man) whose greatest work, Think and Grow Rich was a best seller dedicated to the secret of wealth and achievement. His 'secret' or theory was basically, "you have to have money to make money". Or put a different way, if you think about money, if you plan to have a lot of money and act like you have a lot of money, eventually you WILL have a lot of money. (Anyone see the pretzel logic here?)

Some articles and bigoraphies describe Napoleon Hill as a scam artist who suffered from depresson and loneliness. And others credit him with creating the self-help industry. But his most popular work definitely contains a lot of pretzel logic.

The last verse is also about a scam. If you consult 'the Googles', you'll see that it is a common scam in New Orleans. This one, however, is still going on.

In this part of the song, the singer gets on a shoe shine platform while the proprietor or "business man" tells him where the action in town is, etc. (marking the singer as new to town) asks him where he got his shoes. The scam is that the obvious answer is "on your feet", but if you play the game of having the guy 'guess' - you're going to be out of money when you get the smart alecky answer. If you refuse to pay, I would imagine the consequences are worse. Either way, you'll pay.

The pretzel logic in this one is the question ("Where did you get those shoes?") and the answer ("on your feet").

So three stories of cons games and scams... Linked together by "those days are gone forever" the same way The Who sang the refrain "...we won't get fooled again...". Basically Steely Dan are talking about some pretty shady dealings that take in the unsuspecting and also saying all of those "games" were in the past...when not all of them are. PRETZEL LOGIC!

Even without the revelation, this song has awesome vocals and guitar work. It style and content is representative of and unmistakably 'the Dan'. The strange thing is that this song appeared on the namesake album in 1974 and not on The Royal Scam album of 1976. It would appear that con games and scams were never too far from the mind of Becker and Fagan.

So yes, the song is about "time travel" ... kinda, sorta, but not really.

Awesome song!!!

noise_floor@yahoo.com