Friday song (on a Sunday): ‘Babylon Sisters’ by Steely Dan

Mostly I don’t repeat artists for my picks. There might be the odd anomaly though, and today is one. When saxophone legend Wayne Shorter passed away in 2023, I wrote about him and featured his playing on Aja by Steely Dan. Today is the Dan turn proper. 

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker met as students, their friendship cemented by a love of jazz, mutual cynicism, sharp wit and dedicated musicianship and composition. While Steely Dan (named after a dildo in William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch) started as a band with a relatively stable line up, it evolved to the central partnership of keyboard/vocalist and melodica man Fagen, and Becker, equally adept as a bass player as he was a guitarist, backed up by a revolving bunch of notable session players. 

Steely Dan were innovators, pushing musicians, engineers and record companies to the very limits of tolerance.  Recording budgets were ignored in pursuit of perfection. If session drummer A couldn’t get the feel that Becker and Fagen wanted, they’d bring in drummers B, C, D and so on, getting each one to deliver take after take, until the recorded result reflected their desired outcome.

Guitarists would be flown from coast to coast to play a single solo, which had a better chance of being abandoned in the final mix than being used. The result of this bid for immaculate tracks was a raft of the best rock- and jazz-tinged albums in all of contemporary music. 

For me, every album that preceded Gaucho, was a better record. It’s too polished for my taste and had been worked to the point that any spontaneity had been wrung out of it. Litigation with jazz pianist Keith Jarrett over copyright infringement gave the title track some drama too. 

Babylon Sisters calling

For some though, Gaucho, resplendent with more west coast sheen than any previous album, is a favourite. No matter one’s view, Steely Dan understood that the first track of an album was key to locking in the listener. Rikki Don’t Lose That Number on Pretzel Logic, Kid Charlemagne from The Royal Scam – but for the groove, the fresh sound, the production and the anticipation of the beat, no opening track beats Babylon Sisters, the slow-burning blast of jazzy funk from Gaucho, and today’s song.  

There was nothing that sounded as good, as satisfying or as outrageously perfect as Babylon Sisters did when I first heard it. The story goes that the track was mixed more than 250 times, adding, deleting, re-including, raising and lowering levels on the track separates, with musicians coming and going, each one trying to deliver the Fagen Becker seal of approval.

Starting with a slow burning drum/bass motif with keyboard chords by Don Grolnick, it soon erupts into a west coast shuffle, driven by Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, building horn stabs from Tom Scott and Randy Brecker and a choppy, mixed-back, almost reggae guitar groove by Steve Khan. Fagen’s vocal tells a story of life (or is it lowlife?) in Los Angeles. It all makes Babylon Sisters always worth re-listening to if you know it – and if you don’t, well, you’re in for a big treat. 

Listen to Babylon Sisters on Spotify here and on Apple Music here.

I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on markgrosin@gmail.com.

For more of Mark’s excellent picks, go here.

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