Steely Dan Quotes
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I don't think that the Grammys are in any way a just way of grading music.
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It was the 'Gaucho' album that finished us off. We had pursued an idea beyond the point where it was practical. That album took about two years, and we were working on it all of that time - all these endless tracking sessions involving different musicians. It took forever, and it was a very painful process.
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I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.
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It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years.
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We're not getting any younger.
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ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful.
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People are really exercised about one particular thing, and that is themselves. They will bore you endlessly with their broken hearts.
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We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.
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I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.
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I had trouble distinguishing art from life. I don't now, and I feel much better!
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Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.
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I had a dream that Britney Spears rubbed her breasts in my face and Jennifer Lopez gave me head while Salma Hayek sucked my toes and the Olsen twins videotaped everything. I would have kept dreaming it, too, if I hadn't set off the smoke detector.
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It's interesting how some songs really lend themselves to performance in a big public venue and performance by a band and so on, and so they're even more successful in that context than they were on the record.
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Some places you play in America, it's like 'On the Waterfront.'
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People are usually afraid to say what's on their mind.
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I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.
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I don't think you can escape the environment we live in now.
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If it feels like we're re-creating something rather than creating something, we don't do it.
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Popularity has everything to do with business and nothing to do with music.
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You have a kid, and it's like, 'He's gotta go to college! Gotta have some clothes!'