Riffing off of yesterday’s post and my always-closed adolescent bedroom door, besides Gerry Rafferty’s album Baker Street [which I’ve already covered] the other album I played endlessly on my Magnavox record player was Aja by Steely Dan. I may have even worn out the grooves.
It’s a hallucinatory album that sounds best at two in the morning, and one that I most associate with high school cast parties that were liberally salted with illicit liquor and unrequited obsessive crushes.
“Peg” was the top 40 hit that got the most airplay, but my favorite track was always “Aja” itself, which clocked in at a full eight minutes.
For me it was never about Steely Dan’s lyrics but the music, which had so much texture but was very simple at the same time. Even now while it plays, my brain veers into a bit of a trance. And back then, when it first came out, that trance allowed me to tune out the relentless angst of my house, my town, my existence.
What’s your favorite song from your youth that can induce a trance even today? Leave a comment!
There are so many, from the different eras of my life, but my song on "Aja" was "Deacon Blues," and I remember you marveling at the line, "I cried when I wrote this song" (the heaviness of which is immediately defused by "Sue me if I play too long")
Everly Brothers “ Devoted To You “