Today’s music video is Pretzel Logic and the song is performed here by the American band Steely Dan.
Link to Video at You Tube
This video was posted to You Tube by arosegrowingold
It’s just amazing how a long lasting love of music filters into everyday life.
I have often said how that when I hear an old song, it can usually take me back to to a place and time around that period of time I first recall hearing the song. It happens to me often, when I’m listening to the radio, or even out somewhere and music is playing. It happened often as my young grand daughter got into the Glee TV Series, and they always played those old songs, and she was so amazed that I knew virtually all of them, and would sing along with her as they began, to the shocked look from her, as if to say, hey, this is my music. How do you know it?, and then I had to explain that all of those songs were huge hits when I was not all that much older than she is now.
That’s usually only when the music is playing though, so it came as a surprise to me when it happened with something totally unrelated to music.
I was in a book store just browsing over the new releases, and a man around ten years younger than I am was alongside me, also browsing. He mentioned in passing that books cost so much these days. I replied that I had some books on my shelf dating back to when I first purchased them in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and the price marked on the back indicated that I paid the cost price at that time, and it was around 60 Cents, with most not more than a Dollar. He chuckled and responded ….. “well, those days are gone forever”. Immediately he finished the sentence, my mind hummed the next line ….. “over a long time ago, oh yeah!”
It came right out of the blue, and was so unexpected. I spent the rest of the evening humming the song and most of the words came back to me.
Those two lines are from the song I have featured today, Pretzel Logic, a song taken from the album of the same name by that famed American band Steely Dan. The song was probably even an obscure one, as most likely, the song is only known by fans of the band. I may have heard the song once or twice in those intervening years since I first became aware of the song, so again, that also surprised me, the fact that I could distinctly (and so immediately) remember the song, after a hiatus of thirty years. There it was, always there in my mind, just sitting there, unrecalled until that trigger in the bookshop, and my mind immediately found the path to that song, and brought it back straight away to the front of my mind, such an amazing thing. The power of the mind never ceases to amaze me.
The song was not really a hit here in Australia, so it rarely received airplay, if at all, and the only reason I do remember it is that it was my favourite song from that wonderful album.
I mentioned a couple of weeks back now, how that even though I have around 400 vinyl LP’s from the mid 60’s through to the early 80’s, I gave myself the impression that I was more of a follower when it came to music, and that perhaps there were only a couple of times when I was actually ‘ahead of the game’. Thinking back now, there was in fact quite a few times when I was ahead of the game, getting hold of music before it became popular.
This was another of those cases.
Even though the band was hugely popular in the U.S. they were really only minor here in Australia. They had two, perhaps three hits, spread over a few years, but even then they were only minor hits, and never really made it any higher than perhaps Number 20 or so on the Australian national Charts.
I was right into music in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and I had a small record shop I would frequent, a tiny little shop really. The owner knew me well, and he was always recommending albums to me, and in every case, his selections were always good, and I began to trust his choices.
I early 1973, he pointed me to an album by a new band, Steely Dan, their first album, Can’t Buy A Thrill. Radio was playing the first Single from the album, Do It Again, but only sporadically, and while the Single sold copies, it didn’t make it into the Top 40, mostly played on late night radio. My record man directed me to the album, and I liked it almost as soon as I played it. A little later, another Single was released, Reelin’ In The Years, and again, while receiving airplay, it barely struggled into the Charts here in Australia. I like the album a lot, mainly because it was fresh new music which was somehow a little softer than the hard rock which was popular at the time.
That was it for Steely Dan for me, until in Early 1974, my record guy directed me to a new album he had got from the U.S. Now unlike albums which sell here in Australia, where they are pressed here in the Country, this album was an Import he had got hold of upon its original release, the band’s latest album, their third studio album, Pretzel Logic. I had heard nothing of the songs on it, and a couple of Months later the first Single was released from the album, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. While the song was pretty huge in the U.S. it only made it to Number 30 on the National Charts here in Australia, and this was their biggest hit in Australia.
However, having already had the album now for a few Months before it was released here, I was well aware of it. Again, as was most often the case at the time, I preferred another song on the album rather than the Single which did get released, and that song was the one I have featured today, Pretzel Logic. I liked every song on the album, but my three favourites were this one today, another one which I found truly amazing, East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, a complete rework of the Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley melody from 1927, and Barrytown.
The band’s core is the two musicians, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and for their albums, they got in other musicians to play. The pair were absolute perfectionists, and sometimes laboured for up to a year over an album, and even then, sometimes were still not 100% satisfied with the end result. They toured as a band early on, from 1972 till the start of this album, when these two realised that they preferred writing and doing all their work in the studio. That touring band split up, and from then on Becker and Fagan just got in other musicians for the recording purposes.
Incidentally, in wry twist, the band is named Steely Dan, a name they found in the novel by William S Burroughs titled Naked Lunch, and Steely Dan is the strap on dildo used in that novel, but hey, I guess most of you didn’t want to know that, eh!
The image above of the album is the same as the album I have, the original Import album I got from my record man, and this was the Quadrophonic copy of the album, and Quad was something which never really caught on here in Australia, mainly because the correct sound equipment to play it to its best effect was just so expensive to purchase here in Australia.
The album was one of my favourites at the time, and as the band released each subsequent album, I got hold of them also, their next album, Katy Lied, almost as good as this earlier one, and then came The Royal Scam and Aja, so I have those five Steely Dan albums in my collection.
The image on the cover is just so evocative of those street vendors selling hot pretzels, and this one is of a vendor at the entrance to Central Park.
Steely Dan have always been up there in my short list of favourite artists and bands, having produced so much wonderful music. The lyrics of that first verse are:
I would love to tour the Southland
In a travelling minstrel show
Yes I’d love to tour the Southland
In a traveling minstrel show
Yes I’m dying to be a star and make them laugh
Sound just like a record on the phonograph
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
I hadn’t heard that song for quite literally years, and yet immediately I heard that one line, not even closely related to anything musical, there was the follow up line, instantly recalled. Music can sometimes just be there in the background, and we take it so much for granted how it plays such a huge part in our lives, and times like this bring it straight back how that music may be long gone, but it is never forgotten.