“God’s Eye View”—eleventh song on Circus Money (Walter Becker) (2008)

Now that I’m using my random system to pick among all the Steely Dan, Fagen, and Becker releases, sure enough, it immediately fell on a song I wasn’t familiar with. I was kind of avoiding the Becker and Fagen solo stuff, for no good reason—just because I always wanted them just to keep making Steely Dan records—and with Walter Becker, you don’t have that “comforting” Fagen singing voice. And the cover of that Circus Money album—I am pretty sure that same mask is on the cover of a Hardy Boys book (though now I’m not sure—I remember seeing it on the cover of some book, and it’s driving me crazy). The song surprised me right off, since it’s kind of a laid-back reggae style—I mean, even more laid back than reggae generally is. I immediately liked it—there’s lots of backup vocals, a really nice bass part, and this crazy sounding horn, throughout, and taking the instrumental break solo. I had to look that up—it’s a bass clarinet—you don’t hear one of those every day—played by Roger Rosenberg—it’s really quite beautiful. This song is really fun—extra fun because it’s kind of bizarre. Which is to some degree, the essence of why I like Steely Dan—a mixture of the smooth, the inexplicable, and the just plain weird.

As odd and pleasing as the song is musically, you could almost ignore the lyrics—but you can’t really ignore them—they’re crystal clear, and you just want to know, what is this about? I love the structure of the song—the verses all start with the backup singers chanting a single phrase—in most cases it’s two words, but none of these is repeated. And after each one, then there’s the lyric, sung by Walter Becker, answering each one. It sounds great. First of all, these sung phrases just sound so striking. Here’s an example of a few, from the second verse: “Trash talk,” and “Chump change,” and “Goose chase,” and “Jump cut.” Each time, with a line sung after—so you almost get the feeling of individual titles, with one-line poems. Or perhaps accusations, followed by explanations. I’m not really doing it justice, trying to explain it here. I’m assuming anyone reading this knows the song… or will listen to it now—and you’ll see what I mean. What’s it about, overall?—I suppose it’s relationship stuff. A little sad, a little sleazy, kind of world-weary and resigned, but also laughing at the situation, laughing at itself.

—Randy Russell 9.13.20