If there was a Steely Dan song
About the Stanford Prison Experiment
I would know.
That's not the kind of thing
That escapes you where I come from.
I mean, I know the name of Donald Fagen's dog
And Walter Becker's favorite aftershave.
Do you think that if they'd recorded a song
About that particular social psychological phenomenon
I would be unaware?
I've heard two separate covers of Do Wrong Shoes,
An early tracking session of I Got The News,
Derivations of "If you're feelin' lucky you just can't refuse,"
I know exactly which deli on 8th Avenue
Walter Becker was referring to
In the single show Live at Slim's encore tune
More of a waltz than a twelve bar blues
Of The Girl Next Door To The Methadone Clinic
So yeah, motherfucker, call me a cynic
But I think I would know
If there was a Steely Dan song
About the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Forensic fandom can sometimes take all the fun out of a thing, add random internet fandom into the sauce and......
Reminds me of a time many, many years ago, probably early to mid-90's, long before Facebook and YouTube, when there was some discussion on one of the SD boards about the Woody Herman release, 'Chick, Donald, Walter & Woodrow' and what songs by SD were covered. Those familiar with the project agreed there were 5 SD songs included on the album, however, I chimed-in that there was a 6th song, 'Deacon Blues', included on the British CD release (I had picked it up on a visit to England about a year earlier). Of course, that was met with all kinds of skepticism, as no one in the group had heard of this before and nothing could be found online about it. This was further met with the inevitable shouts for me to prove it. At that time, I had no means to share the audio on-line, and snapping a photo from a cell phone was still many years away. Anyway, I took the CD to work, found someone with a flatbed scanner, and was able to get an image of the back cover listing the songs, to which I then posted online to "prove" it. That, of course, settled the issue, and was then met with some very strong interest in the track and what it sounded like, who played what on it, etc. - all from the same individuals who dissed my information beforehand. Funny how that works. I guess it's human nature.
This whole discussion reminds me of the scene from Annie Hall where Woody is waiting on line to see a movie, and some typical NYC know-it-alls behind him in line are blathering on about Marshall McLuhan and what he REALLY meant when he wrote this book. Woody's rolling his eyes in misery until just then McLuhan himself shows up and starts putting this guy in his place, scolding and saying things like "That wasn't what I had in mind at all! You have no idea at all what I meant when I was writing that book!" Finally Woody looks into the camera and says "Don't you wish life was really like this?" If only...
Hey Matt, doll, I LOVED the 'tude!
"and now for something completely different"
*always* good. :-)
I hope it doesn't ruin the perceptiveness of your dream to say that Social Psych was one of my academic specialities in grad school and Walter couldn’t get enough of it--- I ended up holding symposiums for him fer christsake. He had a superior natural understanding of the concepts of course but most uniquely, he could follow and accept and work with the empirical constraints of experimental psych (which is the type I practiced)...something even the top students resist or don't get for a long time. He was right there. That’s hard.!! Man, he was Schmat!!
But above all, I believe the icing for him were the figures /personalities of Social Psych themselves. Trained as i was in the classic Stanford Model, great research is certainly populated by towering mythic figures about whom every student, from generations back, have stories and tales. These individuals stamped their particular creativity on research and so made great strides, and tried to teach us the same, He loved hearing about some of the old guys especially…many of them having fled Nazi Germany (thereby essentially establishing modern American social psyc.)
He also like the Harlow Cloth Monkey stuff...no surprise there.
(Dr Harlow appears on walterbecker.com btw)
…but for all I know about his interest….i t is still a fundamental mystery what he was on about. Like so much of him; essentially and at the very center…. a mystery
anyway he loved that shit. He would have been equally enraged at that doubter on your behalf!!!! He would have snapped his little pencil dick in half! (hey, just trying t get with the vibe of the dream….<-} )
I guess the SPE stands out mostly because it's both famous and flawed. I think it's easy to pick up on Walter's inherent ability to understand social psychology...he has that way of picking out the incongruities and pointing out (in his clever and wry way) just how off we all are. For me, i would say that's what made Walter so funny...he had that comic's inherent understanding of the pitfalls we fall into as groups or tribes or collectives. But mostly I was just having a dream about being confronted by someone saying Steely Dan had done a song about something that I knew they hadn't. In the dream it wasn't the SPE...I don't even remember what it was...just that I was both incredibly frightened that they had found some fatal flaw in my musical understanding of something I like to think I know an awful lot about, but mostly angry that they would dare question my knowledge... And then this was immediately tempered by an awareness of A) how much of an asshole I was being (imagine if someone had interpreted a song that way and I was just going to shit all over them) and that in my instinctive reaction, I was being everything I hate about high level fandom of anything from sports teams to pop music to radical Jewish leaders of the 1st century. Not too long ago a guy showed up on one of the Facebook groups claiming that the father of one of his friends had a reel to reel tape from Steely Dan in the late 60s when they were named Knuckle Sandwich. He was immediately shat upon by a few people who KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BAND. A few weeks later he sent me digital copies of the four songs on said reel to reel, asking if I could help him make them public. I turned them into videos so he could post them online, and he did, in the same group that had pointed to him as a neophyte fan with no understanding of the niceties of STEELY FUCKING DANDOM. I'd like to say that each of those people apologized and learned their lesson. I'd like to say that, but I can't.
His posts were largely ignored...which is to say they got less traction that the latest batch of setlists or discussion of a guy who says his girlfriend was THE Rikki. Anyway, just venting, and this is probably not the place, I'm largely just reminding myself that I still don't know everything. This journey, Walter Becker Media, has been a good reminder to set aside some preconceived notions, especially when dealing with what you REALLY know. As high as Walter was in my estimation, I've had to constantly review my understanding of how he created music. Seeing the brush strokes spells plain the skill of the painter.
how in hell could you come to that fever dream Matt? i NEVER told you about WB's preoccupation (almost obsession) with Social Psychology....of which, of course, the SPE is supposedly part (shitty study by the way): Careful readers of walterbecker.com can find his "plans" all over theplace of various things that were going to involve famous social psychoogists (you'll also see ,I suspect ,his current Drone's hesitation to take on the projects).
Change of the Guard?