The Steely Dan album Ian Dury said “lifts your heart up”
The late Ian Dury was one of history’s most quintessentially British musicians. Making his name in Kilburn and the High Roads before forming The Blockheads, his sardonic pub rock serves as a time capsule back to when Britain was locked in a pervasive socio-economic disaster, and music was one of the only outlets for the populace. Despite being a very English musician and a product of his era, Dury still loved a range of artists from across the globe, including yacht rock masters Steely Dan, a group who emerged from a completely different set of circumstances.
While at face value, the music of Ian Dury and Steely Dan might seem quite distinct, it makes sense that the Londoner should have been a fan of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s work. Both are united in their witty lyricism that lampooned a host of society’s idiosyncracies and dynamic art brought to life by a cast of talented players. Furthermore, Dury and Steely Dan are noted as some of the most unrelenting misanthropes music has ever known.
Of course, it might also be strange to some that Ian Dury was a fan of Steely Dan, given that he emerged as an adjacent to the punk genre, a movement that had the established acts of the early 1970s in its sights. This opposition to the musical viewpoint was due to what was perceived as classic rock’s pretentious approach that had gone unchecked for too long. Yet, for all of this notion’s truth regarding many of Steely Dan’s peers, Becker and Fagen’s band always stood out from the crowd.
The full-bodied nature of their music and lyrics has meant that Steely Dan’s music has continued to resonate with different generations despite the changing zeitgeist. Promising musical verve, ingenuity, and a healthy dose of comedy, there’s no wonder they’ve enjoyed such mass appeal.
When speaking on a 1999 episode of the series Classic Albums, which concentrated on Steely Dan’s 1977 masterpiece Aja, Ian Dury provided an enlightening account. He said he heard flecks of jazz greats such as Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus in the record and that it “lifts your heart up”.
Dury explained: “Well, Aja‘s got a sound that lifts your heart up, and it’s the most consistent up-full, heart-warming […] even though, it is a classic LA kinda sound. You wouldn’t think it was recorded anywhere else in the world. It’s got California through its blood, even though they are boys from New York […] They’ve got a skill that can make images that aren’t puerile and don’t make you think you’ve heard it before […] very ‘Hollywood filmic’ in a way, the imagery is very imaginable, in a visual sense.”
Listen to Aja below.
