The Steely Dan song that was erased by accident
Whenever Steely Dan went into the studio, they would never settle for anything less than perfection. After becoming two of the most eclectic musicians of their time, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker made the recording studio their home throughout the 1970s, bringing in one session player after another to get the right feeling for each song they played. Although the band had a watershed moment with Aja, their swan song album Gaucho would not include one of the fruits of their labour.
Before the group had even earned their yacht-rock credentials, they were already looking to push the boundaries of what recording technology could do. Utilising different instruments on every single song they made, it wasn’t out of the question for the band to try different sonic costumes from one song to the next, even if it meant getting a different lineup for each track.
Though their lineup would get fairly fluid throughout the 1970s, it was all in service to whichever song they worked on. After finding their edge on The Royal Scam, Aja propelled them into the stratosphere, with Gary Katz working with the duo to create one of the best-sounding records of the modern age.
Although the idea may have been to do the whole thing over again, the sessions were marred by difficulty from the minute they started. Outside of their exhaustion, Becker would also have to deal with the death of one of his loved ones and even getting hit by a car on the way back home from the studio one night.
Even though the band would give everything in service to the song, they showed up one day at the studio and realised that most of their hard work was gone. Instead of continuing with the track they had been working on, they found that most of the tapes they had been refining for weeks had been deleted.
Initially titled ‘Second Arrangement’, the song was supposed to be another hallmark of the album, featuring their signature blend of rock aggression and jazz vocabulary. As Fagen entered the studio, he learned that one of the engineers tasked with operating the playback for the song had accidentally erased most of it by accident.
While Fagen was willing to soldier on with the project, he later remembered that time as “one of the most emotional setbacks we’ve had in the studio”. For the rest of the album, though, the band would be less forgiving of anything else that got in the way of them achieving their jazz-rock vision.
When talking about his time working with the outfit, Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler recalled just how torturous it was trying to get the right effect for his guitar solo on the song ‘Time Out of Mind’, including the band belittling him as they sought to get the best take they could. It wasn’t out of the question for them to replace musicians midway through recording, either, with longtime session musician Jim Keltner being replaced on the song ‘Aja’ in favour of fusion drummer Steve Gadd.
Although Fagen and Becker may have been known as some of the most cutthroat musicians on the studio scene then, it might be about looking at the big picture. They may not have been able to have the best bedside manner when it came to their music, but anyone would probably have an axe to grind if they saw one of their songs become ruined before they even mixed it.
