yeah i think i prefer having the lyrics be more meaningful and less ornamental since i already don't have an easy time understanding people, so to have that carry over into music on purpose feels...weird? not bad, but...this is hard to explain. it's different when the singing is in a language i don't speak anyway. but this is reminding me that jarvis cocker (pulp lyricist and frontman) often has a note on his albums not to read the lyrics while listening to the music, even though there's obviously a lot of time and thought that went into the prose. i can show you where it is on "this is hardcore"! what do you think about a request/command like that?
steely dan has def been classed as "easy listening" by some and i think they've said in the past that they're not very fond of that - they just like jazz a lot! as for the juxtaposition, they took a lot of literary inspo from authors like burroughs (the band name is a reference to naked lunch) which i think says a lot already about their interest in unsavory characters lol. fagen has also talked about nabokov and others. and there's been discussion in interviews about both of them feeling that a lot of their songs are humorous (like 'gaucho' or 'cousin dupree', the one about attempted incest that beat out backstreet boys/barenaked ladies/eminem for a grammy) so it's like, "wouldn't it be funny if we had this cheerful mambo beat or whatever as the backdrop to a song about drug overdose"? very dry and/or dark sense of humor sometimes.
the gay narrative could just be interpretation - i've seen others understand the song as being about a straight relationship and the gaucho is the girl's friend/drug dealer/whatever. but there's the line "you're a nasty schoolboy" which i don't think the narrator would say if he were speaking to a woman - and it's not a question of mishearing, since that's how it's written on the old version of their official website. and in general i feel like the gay version makes more sense, especially written in a time period when the cowboy aesthetic would've been viewed as a gay streetwalker thing (midnight cowboy is from the '60s but even then we have people commenting on the idea that cowboys are attractive to men, not women). plus the narrator saying "i know you're a special friend" - not common language with straight people, even less so in the '70s! as for why.... great question, if they've talked about it i haven't found that interview yet. it could be as simple as them being like, "ok we're writing about the seamy side of the LA scene, and it's not LA without a homo in there somewhere" - it doesn't feel like there's any great significance to it. which is honestly kinda refreshing in its cultural context, since it's not obviously homophobic but it's not about Being An Ally either. just another vignette in their little short story collection.
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steely dan has def been classed as "easy listening" by some and i think they've said in the past that they're not very fond of that - they just like jazz a lot! as for the juxtaposition, they took a lot of literary inspo from authors like burroughs (the band name is a reference to naked lunch) which i think says a lot already about their interest in unsavory characters lol. fagen has also talked about nabokov and others. and there's been discussion in interviews about both of them feeling that a lot of their songs are humorous (like 'gaucho' or 'cousin dupree', the one about attempted incest that beat out backstreet boys/barenaked ladies/eminem for a grammy) so it's like, "wouldn't it be funny if we had this cheerful mambo beat or whatever as the backdrop to a song about drug overdose"? very dry and/or dark sense of humor sometimes.
the gay narrative could just be interpretation - i've seen others understand the song as being about a straight relationship and the gaucho is the girl's friend/drug dealer/whatever. but there's the line "you're a nasty schoolboy" which i don't think the narrator would say if he were speaking to a woman - and it's not a question of mishearing, since that's how it's written on the old version of their official website. and in general i feel like the gay version makes more sense, especially written in a time period when the cowboy aesthetic would've been viewed as a gay streetwalker thing (midnight cowboy is from the '60s but even then we have people commenting on the idea that cowboys are attractive to men, not women). plus the narrator saying "i know you're a special friend" - not common language with straight people, even less so in the '70s! as for why.... great question, if they've talked about it i haven't found that interview yet. it could be as simple as them being like, "ok we're writing about the seamy side of the LA scene, and it's not LA without a homo in there somewhere" - it doesn't feel like there's any great significance to it. which is honestly kinda refreshing in its cultural context, since it's not obviously homophobic but it's not about Being An Ally either. just another vignette in their little short story collection.