This is from their second album, "Countdown to Ecstasy", and "The Dan" at the time was still more or less a band, not having imploded quite yet but without David Palmer, who sang lead vocals on the first album.
On this track we'll hear:
Donald Fagen: piano and vocals
Denny Dias: guitar
Walter Becker: bass
Jim Hodder: drums
Jeff Baxter: pedal steel
From the harmonic-theory standpoint, there's a lovely sequence that starts under "And if you hear" and again under "Please make it clear" in which the bass descends by a semitone with each chord change, while a parallel line in the melody descends by a whole tone with every two changes. The piano plays C#m7, C7, Bm7, Bb7, and so on. So the bass plays "C#, C, B, Bb, ..." while the parallel line goes "E, E, D, D, ..."
OK, maybe it's not really "parallel". Maybe it's "parallel" in the same sense that the blade of a saw is straight. But I don't know a better word. And certainly these two lines could go on forever in either direction without meeting. So there!
You don't hear much of this in rock. I'd be hard-pressed to find another example. But then again Fagen and Becker only played rock. They grew up listening to jazz. And it would take a jazzer to think, "The song is in C, so let's start this section on C#m7."
Rockers don't think like that. I'm convinced most of 'em don't think at all. But never mind that. Listen to this:
On the water down in New Orleans
My baby's the pearl of the quarter
She's a charmer like you never seen
Singing "voulez-voulez-voulez-vous"
Where the sailor spends his hard-earned pay
Red beans and rice for a quarter
You can see her almost any day
Singing "voulez-voulez-voulez-vous"
And if you hear from my Louise
Won't you tell her I say hello?
Please make it clear
When her day is done
She got a place to go
I walked alone down the miracle mile
I met my baby by the shrine of the martyr
She stole my heart with her Cajun smile
Singing "voulez-voulez-voulez-vous"
She loved the million dollar words I'd say
She loved the candy and the flowers that I bought her
She said she loved me and was on her way
Singing "voulez-voulez-voulez-vous"
And if you hear from my Louise
Won't you tell her I love her so?
Please make it clear
When her day is done
She got a place to go
And if you hear from my Louise
Won't you tell her I love her so?
Please make it clear
When her day is done
She got a place to go
