The rarest thing in music: A Steely Dan song recorded in one take
Every mind that goes into a Steely Dan song knows what they’re getting into.
Rather than lay back into a groove and see how everything goes, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have been known to work their session players down to the bone to get just the right take that they are looking for. On the rare occasion, though, sometimes a song comes together almost by magic.
Considering their tireless work ethic in the studio, Steely Dan practically gave up trying to perform their material live. Given that there were so many bells and whistles that went into the final versions of their songs, they felt that their energy was better spent trying to make outstanding recordings than trying to deliver them to a live audience.
Compared to the usual rock band setup, though, Steely Dan never followed the traditional lineup. Coming from the session scene, Fagen and Becker tended to rely on a world-class crew of players to get whatever they needed, occasionally using different lineups on each song that came out.
That revolving door of musicians meant that every session came with its own set of possibilities. Rather than building chemistry over time like a conventional band, Steely Dan thrived on pairing the right player with the right part, often pushing them to deliver something beyond their usual comfort zone. It created an environment where precision and spontaneity had to coexist.
At the same time, it raised the stakes for everyone involved. Session players weren’t just there to get through the take; they were expected to bring something exceptional to the table almost immediately. When everything aligned, as it occasionally did, the results could feel less like a constructed performance and more like something that simply fell into place.
Although records like The Royal Scam may have started a surge of popularity for Steely Dan all over again, it didn’t come without a few hiccups. Working tirelessly to get the right tracks, what unfolded over their magnum opus was a unique blend of jazz, blues, and traditional pop fanfare, all held together with the immaculate sounds of the title track.
Spanning eight minutes, the band deliver a masterclass on how to create unique melodies, from the opening strains of guitar to the warped vocal performance from Fagen. Though they may have slaved one take after another on other songs, the drum performance only took the length of the song to be completed.
When talking about working with the band on the session scene, guitarist Steve Lukather remembered the story of drummer Steve Gadd nailing the song in a single take. Discussing the record with Rick Beato, Lukather recalled Gadd first seeing the music and nailing it, explaining, “Gadd came in, and he was a little late. He came in a little lazy from the night before. He counted it in, and that was the record.”
While Gadd delivered a masterclass performance throughout the song, one of the pieces of magic behind his performance comes from the subtle imperfections. Towards the middle of the song, Gadd breaks into a fantastic drum solo break alongside the saxophone, only to run out of drums when preparing for the final drum roll. Instead of botching the take and moving on to run it again, Gadd can be heard clicking his sticks together, which became the perfect lead-in for the next verse.
Gadd wasn’t even meant to be the main drummer on the song, either. Earlier in production, Steely Dan had run a separate version of the track with drum legend Jim Keltner on drums before deciding that it wasn’t good enough.
Though Lukather did recall how gruelling those sessions could be, he had the utmost respect for what The Dan were capable of, saying, “They dug the process of making people bleed for it. You can’t write it out, and you can’t rehearse it. You get four or five guys in a room with different time feels, and then it falls into this thing.”
