“Josie”—last song, side two of Aja (1977)

Never my favorite Steely Dan number—still, Josie is a very good song, which I appreciate more in retrospect—even though it’s one of their more overplayed ones. Being the last song on Aja, from 1977, it was the last I paid attention to Steely Dan until the early Nineties when I became a fan once again (and that’s a long story). But as a senior in high school, I was pretty much through with them by the time this record came out. I mean, I liked it—I remember putting some of the songs on my recordable 8-Track tapes, for my car. But I was onto new things—punk rock, mostly. Even so, there was something about the Aja album cover, and the whole presentation, that fascinated me, stuck with me. I guess it felt like a jazz album cover—even though I knew nothing about jazz. It wasn’t as audacious as “Never Mind the Bollocks” (Sex Pistols), but it felt in some ways as frightening. These were adults—and even though they weren’t that much older than me, at the time, I was not going to cross over into their world.

In retrospect, the opening “secret agent” guitar part always struck me as a bit obvious and a little lame—maybe the weak point of the entire album. I suppose, though, at the time, it was the hook it was supposed to be. To put things in perspective, as impossible as that is—for me, back then, “Deacon Blues” felt like the soft spot—I found it annoying. Now it’s my favorite song from the record—a song I can’t seem to get tired of. It’s funny how those things change. On “Josie,” as with the rest of this record, all the elements—the playing, the instruments—are as good as it gets. The electric piano sounds particularly sublime. It’s well-documented who plays what on each song—but I’m not relating those details here—but every so often I take notice, and one interesting thing I read is that it’s the only Steely Dan song the great drummer, Jim Keltner, played on. Lyrically, it’s a bit ho-hum—I mean, “Josie” returns to the neighborhood… and they party. Of course, the bit in the chorus, “She prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire,” is a standout—I mean, who else would write a line like that? There’s also a reference to a “battle apple,” which you don’t hear every day—which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen in a museum—essentially a mace. And finally, as referred to in the always hilarious SD liner notes (this credited to “Michael Phalen”), “…this sociopathic jump tune is sure to become a classic zebra in the annals of Punkadelia.”

—Randy Russell 5.8.22