Pretzel Logic: Those Days Are Gone Forever
By Thomas Fraki.
At a glance, Steely Dan seems like any other rock band to come out of the 1970s. But the reality is that, as a group, they produced some of the most unique and complex pop music to emerge during that time. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the band’s co-founders and songwriting duo, produced compositions that were exceedingly precise and drew on a wide array of influences. To merely categorized their songs as jazz-rock would be a disservice to the music.
Pretzel Logic represents a key turning point for the group. Fagen and Becker may have originally created Steely Dan as a traditional rock band, but by the time Pretzel Logic was through being produced, the duo was already relying heavily on session musicians for recording and determined not to go on tour. Pretzel Logic symbolizes the moment when Steely Dan stopped being a band and became two meticulous songwriters dedicated to producing intricate and exact music.
Success and Failure
Steely Dan put out two albums, Can’t Buy A Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy, prior to the release of Pretzel Logic. Their debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill, released two years earlier in 1972. Several of the album’s songs caught traction on the U.S. charts and received a decent amount of radio play. On the album, singer David Palmer split lead vocals with Donald Fagen. Palmer left the group following the release due to bandmates’ preference of Fagen’s vocals to accompany the lyrical cynicism in much of the songwriting.
The followup, Countdown to Ecstasy, was recorded on the road while the band was touring. It focused more on instrumental jams as opposed to succinct pop songs. Critically, the album did well. However, commercially, it was not nearly as successful as their debut effort. Fagen and Becker were disappointed with the result and blamed it on some of the album’s performances, possibly due to the recording’s rushed nature. This may account for Pretzel Logic being a much more session-oriented production.
Pretzel Logic was recorded in Los Angeles and was the last album to feature the full Steely Dan lineup of Fagen, Becker, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Jim Hodder, and Denny Dias. It also featured a long list of session musicians including Royce Jones, Michael McDonald, and Jeff Porcaro. The album was released in February 1974 to impressive commercial sales and critical acclaim. Robert Christgau, writing for Creem magazine, said, “The music can be called jazzy without implying an insult, and Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are the real world’s answer to Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.”
Suddenly The Music Hits You
Going into Pretzel Logic, Fagen and Becker knew that a change was needed to avoid another frustrating release like Countdown to Ecstasy. Instead, their efforts would go back toward writing concise, structured pop songs. The shift in course was a success and Pretzel Logic ended up with some of the best songwriting of the band’s discography. In terms of music, each track takes a step in a different direction and as a whole create a stylistic collage.
Pretzel Logic’s first track, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” ended up being the album’s biggest hit. The song features a syncopated piano part and guitar solos by Jeff Baxter. The bass line was taken directly from Horace Silver’s 1965 song, “Song For My Father.” The rest of the album’s first side, specifically “Night By Night” and “Any Major Dude Will Tell You,” showcase Fagen and Becker’s ability to write deceptively complex jazz/pop hybrids paired with mysterious, sharp lyrics. The side is closed out by an electric cover of Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-oo.”
The eponymous track, “Pretzel Logic,” again demonstrates the stylistic dexterity of the group’s compositions. In tone, the song adapts a blues/soul rhythm driven by Fagen’s piano playing. The B-side also feature’s a tribute to Charlie Parker titled “Parker’s Band” that directly exhibits the jazz influences that are so much a part of the musicians’ playing. Despite the variety of musical directions that Pretzel Logic takes, the songs are able to flow from one to the next all while seeming at home in whatever approach each song takes.
Any Minor World That Breaks Apart Falls Together Again
During the production of Pretzel Logic, a division formed between the duo of Fagen and Becker and the other members of the group, specifically Jeff Baxter and Jim Hodder. Fagen and Becker were at odds with the rest of the band regarding touring and its impact on the recording process. On top of that, the fact that some of the original band members took a backseat to session musicians during the recording of Pretzel Logic also did not help inner tensions.
Steely Dan’s final tour performance took place on July 5, 1974, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. They wouldn’t tour again until the band reformed almost two decades later. Founding members Baxter and Hodder left Steely Dan following the decision to stop playing live. Baxter and contributor Michael McDonald went on to work extensively with the Doobie Brothers. Denny Dias, however, stayed on with Steely Dan until their breakup in 1980. With Pretzel Logic behind them, Steely Dan had an acclaimed album in their catalog and less a good portion of their band members.
The dynamic of the group had changed in a permanent way. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were now the songwriting focal point of Steely Dan with a whole cast of studio musicians at their disposal. For any other band, a shift such as that could have been a creative death sentence. But Steely Dan would go on to create some of the most intricate and fascinating pop of that decade. Some of their albums would go on to receive more notoriety and praise. However, they would never put out another album that was as complete and perfectly fitting for them as Pretzel Logic was.
- Side One
- “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”
- “Night By Night”
- “Any Major Dude Will Tell You”
- “Barrytown”
- “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”
- Side Two
- “Parker’s Band”
- “Through With Buzz”
- “Pretzel Logic”
- “‘With A Gun”
- “Charlie Freak”
- “Monkey In Your Soul”
Thomas Fraki is a Minneapolis-based journalism grad, music aficionado, book nerd, hiker, amateur photographer, and beer drinker with an overgrown wall of records.
Nice! As a long time Steely Dan follower this was really an enjoyable read.