The Nightfly

Sweetandy, I gotta disagree. I think New Frontier is about hosting a party in a bomb shelter, but not after a nuclear holocaust. Hence "let's pretend that its the real thing".

So I think this song is just about a regular underground dj. And the "race of men in the trees" is just a conspiracy theory espoused by some paranoid caller (who is also for tougher legislation).

I looked up the lyrics cause I couldn't understand the love verses, then ran across the meanings site. My comments are..being a jazz jockey can be a lonely existence, specially if you're broadcasting from a shack at the foot of a mountain which is often the case with small stations. They mount the antenna on top of the highest promontory in the area, then run the lines down to the base, build a broadcast shack and broadcast from there.So he's into some silent reveries about a lost love in his lonely existence. He's happy but he's melancholy. The 7 second seven delay is so he can delete expletives from any callers. That's my take.~S

Not to be Captain Obvious, but the "Won't you turn your radio down / Respect the seven second delay we use" is a reference to a phenomenon that occurs when a caller's radio is loud enough to carry into their telephone - it creates a feedback loop which sounds really weird. When this happens, DJs will remind the caller to turn down their radios. I'm sure most people who listen to the radio have heard this at one time or another but I don't know if many people listen to the radio anymore. I thought I'd provide that small and perhaps obvious insight.

Great song, great album.

Well, I suppouse it is about an independent station called WJAZ which has jazz and conversation. Hmmm, a bit too obvious perhaps?

Father Oblivion:

It's a commercial Lester the DJ has to recite.

Patton's Kiss and Tell is a cosmetics product. The commercial foreshadows Lester's thoughts about his lost love, so it's ironic. The entire song is ironic, because it's clear that Lester is barely making a living, playing music he loves at a time when almost no one is listening except insomniacs with their own problems and delusions.

The song is similar in meaning and story line to Piano Man by Billy Joel, where an extremely talented piano player and singer works in a bar that's a dive, frequented by losers and low-lifes, which is a reflection on the pitiful life the piano player leads.

a Jazz call in talk show DJ

the "race of men in the trees" were what certain white bigots of the time thought of blacks....that they were like monkey in trees....

lyric is actually: "If you want your honey To look super swell You must spring for that hoojah"

a "hoojah" is a slang Cajun term, something, a gadget of some sort, some cosmetic, that he thinks will make his Honey look super swell....

the sunlight comes through the skylight when his show is over in the morning, since he is Lester the Nightfly, a night time DJ

As is attributed to Freud when speaking of objects in dreams, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Sometimes a song is just some nice, toe-tapping music with a title that is descriptive of the song and not so damn existential!

Being older (51) when I want deeper meaning in song I listen to The Moody Blues and can really get into it but at times I must admit that even they can get a bit pompous. Having gone through the era of bands feeling the need to have "big" names which made no sense (Strawberry Alarm Clock, Ides of March, Wadsworth Mansion, The Assembled Multitude, Brotherhood of Man, Chairman of the Board) is was refreshing to me for the '70s to have a rebirth of bands that were simply "The" whatever (Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Cars) and even better when it became just one word (Styx, Kansas, Chicago, Genesis, Heart). But I digress....

I love Steely Dan and Donald Fagen as I find their music tight, clean and played as close to perfection as is humanly possible. And sometimes I just want to tap my toe, enjoy the groove and not worry about the deeper meaning behind the lyrics. These boys have done that for me countless times and I love it!

The lyrics seem pretty straightforward regarding a lonely night-time DJ, except for this:

If you want your honey To look super swell You must spring for that little blue jar Patton's Kiss And Tell Kiss And Tell

I have no idea what this means. Little blue jar? Patton's kiss and tell?

The song is aabout a late-night talk show host/DJ. (It brings to mind the late Ray Taliaferro, who ran an all-night talk show in San Francisco for over 30 years. He would also occasionally play jazz music on his show.)

"Won't you turn your radio down" - having the radio on while calling a talk show can cause feedback and confuse both the caller and the host.

"Respect the seven second delay we use" - the program is sent through system that delays the sound by seven minutes before it goes over the air. Profanity or other inappropriate material can be deleted before it is aired.

"a race of men in the trees / You're for tough legislation" - example of the types of calls that late-night talk shows sometimes get.

"a race of men in the trees " could also have a more sinister meaning: lynching of African Americans in the southern US, which was known to take place as late as the 1950s.

"Thanks for calling / I wait all night / For calls like these" - sung with a sarcastic tone, he's not really enthusiastic about these callers/subjects.

"But I feel like crying / I wish I had a heart like ice" - What, all's not going well here in radioland? More on this later in the song.

"Patton's Kiss And Tell" - ad for a cosmetics project, face cream most likely. The ad is but a temporary distraction; the singer will tell us more about why he is unhappy shortly.

"You'd never believe it But once there was a time When love was in my life I sometimes wonder What happened to that flame The answer's still the same It was you, it was you Tonight you're still on my mind"

Once upon a time, the singer was in a nice relationship. It broke up, probably due to the stresses of being in the radio business (late nights, odd hours, perhaps having to move from town to town to find work)

"You" refers to the host's audience.