"Deacon Blues" is a song written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in 1976 and recorded by their group Steely Dan on their 1977 album Aja.[2] It peaked at number 19 on the Billboard charts[3] and number 17 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100 in June 1978.[4] It also reached #40 on the Easy Listening chart.[5] In Canada, it peaked at #14, a position it occupied for two weeks,[6] and #20 Adult Contemporary.[7] In 2021, it was listed at No. 214 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[8]
Background
Donald Fagen said of the song's opening lines and theme:
The concept of the "expanding man" that opens the song may have been inspired by Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. Walter and I were major sci-fi fans. The guy in the song imagines himself ascending to the levels of evolution, "expanding" his mind, his spiritual possibilities, and his options in life.[9]
The song was largely written at Fagen's house in Malibu and was prompted by his observation that "if a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the 'Crimson Tide' the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well."[2] The song's protagonist, muses Fagen, is somewhat "autobiographical in that it reflected the dreams [Fagen and Becker had] about becoming jazz musicians while . . . living in the suburbs."[10] Characterized as a "loser" by Becker, the song's subject was meant to reflect "a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life".[2] In his 2013 memoir Eminent Hipsters, Fagen gives credit to Norman Mailer as inspiration for the narrator's persona:
[It] toyed with the cliché of the jazz musician as antihero. It was kind of a takeoff on that old essay by Norman Mailer, "The White Negro," not to mention our lives up to that point. . . . the alienated white suburban kid thinks that if he learns how to play bebop, he'll throw off the chains of repression and live the authentic life, unleash the wild seeds of art and passion and so on.[11]
On the origin of the song's name, Fagen says, it was inspired by football player Deacon Jones, as they like the sound of his name: "It also had two syllables, which was convenient, like 'Crimson.'"[2] The song, however, is really about "the ultimate outsider, the flip side of the dream, boy-o . . . call me Deacon Blues."[11]
Recording
"Deacon Blues" was recorded at Village Recorders in West Los Angeles. Jazz guitarist Larry Carlton used Fagen's demos to transcribe the chords into a rhythm section that featured Carlton's guitar on the song's opening. Saxophonist Tom Scott wrote the horn arrangements for not only "Deacon Blues" but for all of the songs on Aja, a task that he completed in less than two weeks. After the song was recorded, Becker and Fagen decided to add a saxophone solo. They asked their producer, Gary Katz, to arrange for Pete Christlieb to record the part. At the time, neither Becker nor Fagen knew Christlieb by name, only by his reputation as a musician on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Christlieb went to the studio and recorded the solo after taping the show one evening.
They told me to play what I felt. Hey, I'm a jazz musician, that's what I do ... so I recorded my first solo ... we listened back and they said it was great. I recorded a second take and that's the one they used. I was gone in a half hour. The next thing I know I'm hearing myself in every airport bathroom in the world.[2]
About its composition, Fagen later stated: "One thing we did right on 'Deacon Blues' and all of our records: we never tried to accommodate the mass market. We worked for ourselves and still do."[2]
Reception and legacy
"Deacon Blues" was released on Steely Dan's 1977 album Aja which reached No.3 on Billboard's album chart, a position it held for seven consecutive weeks.[2] The song was the duo's fifth Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US, where it peaked at #19 in 1978. "Deacon Blues" remained in the Top 40 for eight weeks.[12]Billboard particularly praised the "outstanding" saxophone playing.[13]Cash Box praised the production, "jazzy guitar licks," lead vocals and "tasty keyboard touches."[14]Record World said from the masters of the complex lyric, musings on what it means to be an artist."[15]Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote that "not only is "Deacon Blues" one of their strongest songs ever, it's also one of their warmest."[16]
In a 1994 AOL chat interview, Becker discussed the inspiration for the song, "It was an outgrowth of a specific mood that pertained at a given time," and later added, "I remember the night that we mixed that one thinking that it was really good and wanting to hear it over and over which is never the case."[17] Music critic Marc Myers writes "As midlife-crisis songs go, Steely Dan's 'Deacon Blues' ranks among the most melodic and existential."[2]
