The late Phil Woods was one of the greatest bebop saxophonists of all time. He won best alto player in DownBeat magazine's annual poll for something like 30 years straight.
Phil Woods was a Juilliard graduate (on clarinet because they didn’t have a sax major at the time in the early ‘50s) who played with Quincy Jones’ big band before becoming one of the most in demand session axe men in both LA & NY. He also played the sax solo on Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.”
What’s weird for me is the day Walter Becker died, a katydid, which is on the cover of Katy Lied appeared on my back porch windowsill when I was unwinding after work. Never saw one in real life before, and I looked at it said, “Walter??”. It didn’t answer back. Just stared at me. Typical Walter.
Fantastic review, Lee! You have found your niche. You are becoming a pro at this. It really warms my heart seeing someone as young as you appreciate really good music. Love the fact that you are experiencing this for the first time. I had the same reaction as you, but in the 70s. Steely Dan is the band! Thank you for doing steely Sundays. One of my favorite things to do on Sunday. You are doing an exceptional job and we all appreciate it.✌️🔥🎸🎤🥁🎷🎺👏
Dr. Wu is one of their best with the lyrics, piano and sexy sax!Remember Lee what Donald did with the endings was leaving their fans wanting more which we always did!😃
In 1975 I was a junior in high school. This album came out and shortly we got a new principle. Ironically his name was Dr. Wu. During homeroom announcements our class president would refer to lyrics in the song. The principle would walk down the hallway people would sing parts of the song. He was cool about it.
Ahhhh my old friend Dr. Wu... iconic lyrics and musicianship. Glad you noticed the dynamics and Jeff Porcaro at his best on the too short outro. Timeless indeed- loved this song for 50 years
Donald Fagan’s funk cannot be matched. This band has always oozed sophistication. I describe their genre as Grungy rock-jazz-funk with sophistication oozing over the top.
I heard Phil Woods perform an extended musical tribute to a deceased friend of his in a small church in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania abt 1980. The acoustics were superb and the experience was magical.
Phil Woods on alto. Had the pleasure of seeing him several times. Best bebop alto of his generation. Also did the solo on Billy Joel's 'Just The Way You Are'
Personally been a SD fan since Can’t Buy A Thrill, Dr. Wu had been one of my favorites progressing through the years, before I knew what a Mu chord was, and in between Aja & Gaucho I moved and lived in So FL. Had a short passionate relationship with a gorgeous girl of Cuban descent, who had a bit of a daring exhibitionist streak. I195 or the Julia Tuttle causeway that ran from I95 in Miami, East to end in Miami Beach had a few automobile pull overs that people used to either fish in, or sit by in the grass at Biscayne Bay. Well Caridad liked to get into it in the car, as dusk was falling into dark, to get seriously frisky for the thrill of potentially getting caught. When I mentioned the lyrics in Dr. Wu, you can imagine the frequency uptick, as well as a trip to the local Peaches music store for the cassette. 😉😂 Best damn SD song for me.
Do Your Gold Teeth II and Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning references the story of Taxi Driver, if you haven’t seen that movie watch it this week, it’s dark.
Re: Chain Lightning. Taxi Driver is a first. I don’t see that in those lyrics. I have always heard it refers to Hitler and the his personal Nazi bodyguards the SS (Schutzstaffel) whose “SS” insignia resembles lightning. Fagan even later admitted it was a song about 2 guys visiting a fascist rally. Fagan had a fascination with Hitler and had previously joked about making a song about the beer hall putsch in Munich in 1923.
Taxi Driver came out in '76, a year after Kay Lied, so how could they be referencing it? It's clearly about a pair of Nazi's recounting their early days at the youth rallies
Most folks overlook "Fire in the Hole" from Steely Dan's debut album 'Can't Buy a Thrill'. "Fire in the Hole" is total funk with a heavy layer of piano and pedal steel guitar - just unique. Also, please hear Walter's western-flavored ballad "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)", sung beautifully by David Palmer, and accompanied by Skunk Baxter's heart-piercing pedal steel guitar once more.
Classic Dan. Note the album cover - the insect is a Katydid, which is a play on the album title Katy Lied (which came from a line in Dr. Wu, as you noted.
Steely Dan’s lyrics, in general tend to slide into the seedy side of life. If you haven’t noticed! The name of the damn band says it all. And they love cord progressions! Do ‘Your Gold Teeth 2’
You are right about the piano, but the session guy playing the piano is the great Michael omartian. This is a perfect track to illustrate what Donald likes to do with the piano, doubling up the vocal parts with the piano.
L33, I can't thank you enough for this. My favorite SD song by far. I still get chills every time, 50 years later ❤. It speaks to me about addictive tendencies and the helplessness to resist them, in a way its hard to articulate .
Hey!! I see Captain Beefheart back there. I was already a fan of you and your SD reactions but now...NOW you really got me. Subscribing right now. And I know you dislike fadeouts, but this is one of the best ones EVER. And those piano chords on the chorus are SO BEAUTIFUL.
A little factoid about Dan. Every one of their albums included a British musician called Victor Feldman, who was mainly a jazz vibraphonist who made dozens of albums and guested on dozens more. He was also the cousin of my father's second wife. My brothers both met him, but I was elsewhere at the time. So I failed to meet someone who played with one of my favourite bands! Ho hum...
I definitely remember Dr. Wu, don’t remember the first song and I don’t think I know many songs from this album,but I Love Dr. Wu, thanks for sparking my interest to go listen to this album!
Ya, just about every Steely Dan song could go for at least twice as long. And some people think Deacon Blues is TOO long?? 😒It's like dinner at my brothers house when his wife says "more spaghetti?"..."Yes please". 🙂
Whoever Brad is… well, I won’t denigrate, but he is dead wrong. Back in the day, we waited the whole year for the next Dan album, and when it dropped, we wore out the tape (8-track, of course). I loved how groovy “Daddy” is. I was only 15 when it came out, and most of my friends who dug this band - few and far between, really,didn’t get the plentiful drug references. (I lived in Scranton, PA… not known for teenage musical sophistication) Our young ears were graced by the Dan’s yearly releases from ‘72 through ‘80… pretty much helped me grow up! And Dr. Wu is one of their greatest compositions!
@@L33Reacts About a wk or 2 ago- a Donald Fagen video popped up on my youtube. It was a vid of him getting a jazz hall of fame award about 15 yrs ago. . When he sat down at the piano - he said something like-it's not fair that he had to perform right after Phil Woods did-haha. I'm sure Fagen was a big fan of Woods. It's a short video -but u will see Donald playing some great jazz piano and he performed his song "Florida Room" from his solo album Kamakiriad. If u want to see it-just look up Donald Fagen jazz award on youtube.
_Chain Lightning_ Please! A favorite of a lot of long-time SD fans. Re. the fades that end SD songs of the day: if you wanted a song to be played on Top-40 radio in those days, you still had to keep it short. DJs loved to talk over the ends of songs, too (I used to HATE that) so they favored songs with fades to segue out of.
Woods' spastic solo and Porcaro's pounding drums during the fade-out here is, to me, an image of life slipping away from the OD'ed Doctor (or some other person close to our narrator). And it prefigures the death of Becker's girlfriend Roberta Stanley at his New York home in January 1980, from some sort of drug overdose.
Phil Woods also did fantastic guest alto solos for Just the Way You are by Billy Joel and Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon. There’s another one he did that I’ll remember soon.
Something i think everyone misses about this song "Dr Wu" is the singer is speaking with the doc about him with he woman the singer was with. The venom comes at the end of the song with the music getting chaotic and tentioned minor chordings, and the singer begins seeing his intent dawning in the doctors eyes so there is no reason to hide it anymore, "Can you hear me doctor? are you with me doctor?" Let me know if it sounds that way to you. lol
'Daddy', I've always imagined, is about the fictional narrator's father, who was always off hustling and sliding around. Until the day he ripped off the wrong people. If you want to pair something with Gold Teeth, do Any World That I'm Welcome To. Heavy song.
"I feel more like an adult when I listen to Steely Dan. Like I got all my shit together." Yup, there's a name for that, ya know. It's known as having the Steely Dan T-shirt. 😆
This song feels so intimate and poetic, despite/along with the difficult subject matter (only half spoken out, as usual with the Dan). It's a real chamber performance, very subtle and with such a lovely groove. I love how Donald's vocal style communicates that the guy in the lyrics doesn't really want to tell what happened, it's too embarrassing, yet feels he has to get it out of himself...
@@ripvanwinkle2002 The way I read it', Doctor Wu is the dealer, "the main man" and the narrator finds that Wu has OD'ed and is not coming back anymore. Imagine him standing over the doctor's unresponsive body: "Are you with me, Doctor? Can you HEAR me, Doctor?".
The Dan were always oblique in their lyrics, just hinting what the song was about (also, they didn't want t come across as moralizing about these touchy subjects).. Most people would agree that this one is about drug addiction, but what about the specifics? Who is Doctor Wu and what does he do? Well, here is the best explanation I've seen - it was posted several years ago as a comment at another upload of the song, and for years showed as one of the top comments. Then for some reason, the Tube tagged it as "suspected spam" or the like and pushed it far down into the mass of those that have just one thumbs-up or so, despite it still being one of the most thumbs-upped, with more than a hundred likes. Weird, but here goes... (and no, it's not my own of course) "Narrator is a dope fiend. Doc Wu is his dealer and Katy is heroin (slang at the time). Fagen called this song "a love/dope triangle". Doc Wu is supposed to be doing him a solid finding him dope whenever he's strung out but all of a sudden he stops showing up. Our narrator goes down to the seedy part of town by the port to see if he can score some drugs when to his surprise who does he find down there? Doc Wu is passed out on the dock with a needle in his arm. He was supposed to be an ordinary guy but Katy got the better of him too. The reason he's not showing up anymore is cause he's a junkie now and in even worse shape than our narrator. He arrives just in time to see that doc Wu won't be coming around anymore cause he's od'd. "Are you with me doctor? Can you hear me doctor?"" Ties up a lot of loose ends for me, and I think the point where the piano becomes heavier and more mournful at "Katy lies, you can see it in her eyes" matches the moment when the guy realizes that the trip is not for free, that there is a final price to be paid - the moment when the loss comes to the surface for him.
Chain lightning flows in the album order and both songs are again too short on their own but together satisfying. Still too short but I believe this is the most underrated, under appreciated Steely Dan album.
Yet two more SD songs that name drop east coast locations, even though Donald and Walter had been working out of LA for years by this time. I remember the sax break in "Doctor Wu" was used in radio ads for a Bay Area audio/video store. I knew it from there long before I knew the song! I actually prefer "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More" because it did a nice job combining lyrics and groove. IMO it's a throwback to 'Countdown to Ecstasy", and I'm guessing was from that older songbook.
THIS SONG HINTS AT THE INTRUSION OF HEROIN INTO THE BAND IE WALTER BEKER,ALSO REFERINCED IN BLACK COW, AS DONALDS FRUSTRATION GREW,WALTER FINALLYWENT TO THE CARRIBEAN TO CLEAN UP,HENCE THE LONG DURATION BETWEEN ALBUMS I HAVE BEEN A DAN FAN FOR OVER50 YEARS STILL MY FAVE,DELVE INTO SOME OF DONALDS SOLO WORK I.E. SUNKIN CONDOS. NITE FLY CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BEST LP;S EVER RECORDED.
While everything Dan recorded was fabulous Dr Wu is their most beautiful and cutting song for me. Many people (including myself) had a cherished Katy who lied. Dr Wu is a song of disillusionment and despair followed by redemption thru the mystical figure of Dr Wu. I see the mystical Dr as the alter ego of Donald who came to his rescue in his hour of need
I notice you haven't discovered the Dan's Two Against Nature album that came out after a 20 year hiatus to win the Grammy for Best Pop Album of the year. You might get a chuckle out of How About a Kiss For Your Cousin Dupree?
I always look in the comments for Dr. Wu to see if anyone mentions that Katy is actually heroin. Someone smarter than me commented in another reaction vid, and I look for mention in other comment sections. If no one points it out, then I feel compelled to do it myself; it gives the lyrics their full dimensions, in my opinion.
One of the few true Steely Dan love songs, but is the subject a woman, drugs, or both? The lyrics are so incredibly clever that it can really go either way, and that’s the beauty of it. I’ve often called the Katy Lied album….and especially Doctor Wu “Aja Jr.” because they were definitely showing flashes of that sound from Aja, but then they took a bit of a detour with Royal Scam before they finally got there. 👍🏼🎸🎼❤️😎
You're way too polite. I know that comes from taking requests. Because you're in the awkward position of saying too much negative. Not that you would on this song. Maybe you did love it but most of us out here. I do think especially from that era could have done without this. Not that the group isn't good at what they do generally, but I would have passed on this. I listen to a lot of music reaction videos. And I've always believed that the risk of playing music by request put you in the orchestra position of being a 100% honest on your reaction.
??? This wasn't even a request lol. And you posted this before you could have even seen my recap about it. It's still premiering and this is 6 minutes old. Nice try.
Whoever Brad is… well, I won’t denigrate, but he is dead wrong. Back in the day, we waited the whole year for the next Dan album, and when it dropped, we wore out the tape (8-track, of course). I loved how groovy “Daddy” is. I was only 15 when it came out, and most of my friends who dug this band - few and far between, really,didn’t get the plentiful drug references. (I lived in Scranton, PA… not known for teenage musical sophistication) Our young ears were graced by the Dan’s yearly releases from ‘72 through ‘80… pretty much helped me grow up! And Dr. Wu is one of their greatest compositions!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The late Phil Woods was one of the greatest bebop saxophonists of all time. He won best alto player in DownBeat magazine's annual poll for something like 30 years straight.
A cut above even Dan’s high standard, Dr. Wu’s a classic.
I think that Doctor Wu is the Dan's song I prefer. It's literally perfect, every instrument is used in a fantastic way, creating a masterpiece.
No such thing as a less than excellent Steely Dan song. Some are just more excellent than others. Then there's that saxophone. Nothing but HEAT.
Agreed - in addition to being a masterpiece of arranging and performance, it’s just drop-dead, spine-tinglingly beautiful .
Phil Woods was a Juilliard graduate (on clarinet because they didn’t have a sax major at the time in the early ‘50s) who played with Quincy Jones’ big band before becoming one of the most in demand session axe men in both LA & NY. He also played the sax solo on Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.”
'Biscayne Bay....where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day.' Classic!
Heroin
What’s weird for me is the day Walter Becker died, a katydid, which is on the cover of Katy Lied appeared on my back porch windowsill when I was unwinding after work. Never saw one in real life before, and I looked at it said, “Walter??”. It didn’t answer back. Just stared at me. Typical Walter.
I'm of the same ilk as you. I would totally have asked the bug the same thing. I don't care if people think I'm weird 🤷 🙂
Dr wu, with what might be my favorite rhyme scheme in the chorus, with the implied rhyme. Perfect.
Fantastic review, Lee! You have found your niche. You are becoming a pro at this. It really warms my heart seeing someone as young as you appreciate really good music. Love the fact that you are experiencing this for the first time. I had the same reaction as you, but in the 70s. Steely Dan is the band! Thank you for doing steely Sundays. One of my favorite things to do on Sunday. You are doing an exceptional job and we all appreciate it.✌️🔥🎸🎤🥁🎷🎺👏
Dr. Wu is one of their best with the lyrics, piano and sexy sax!Remember Lee what Donald did with the endings was leaving their fans wanting more which we always did!😃
In 1975 I was a junior in high school. This album came out and shortly we got a new principle. Ironically his name was Dr. Wu. During homeroom announcements our class president would refer to lyrics in the song. The principle would walk down the hallway people would sing parts of the song. He was cool about it.
Pre-Toto Jeff Porcaro. Precocious talent.
Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers saved the 70's.
They were bringing the heat 🥵
Two of my favourite Steely Dan tracks. I've been listening to them for over forty years and Doctor Wu still gives me goose bumps!
Ahhhh my old friend Dr. Wu... iconic lyrics and musicianship. Glad you noticed the dynamics and Jeff Porcaro at his best on the too short outro. Timeless indeed- loved this song for 50 years
Donald Fagan’s funk cannot be matched. This band has always oozed sophistication.
I describe their genre as Grungy rock-jazz-funk with sophistication oozing over the top.
I heard Phil Woods perform an extended musical tribute to a deceased friend of his in a small church in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania abt 1980. The acoustics were superb and the experience was magical.
Steely Dan - Your favorite band's favorite band
Always, my friend.
Dr. Wu has always been one of my fave SD songs.
Even if 'Doctor Wu' is about drugs, it's also still one of the most darkly romantic songs from them. Great horn solo.
dark romance....... that's Donald Fagan for ya'
Phil Woods on alto. Had the pleasure of seeing him several times. Best bebop alto of his generation. Also did the solo on Billy Joel's 'Just The Way You Are'
I’m so with you - a great song like this should *not* fade out.
It makes me furious lol they are such a tease. And THEY KNOW IT LOL
Personally been a SD fan since Can’t Buy A Thrill, Dr. Wu had been one of my favorites progressing through the years, before I knew what a Mu chord was, and in between Aja & Gaucho I moved and lived in So FL. Had a short passionate relationship with a gorgeous girl of Cuban descent, who had a bit of a daring exhibitionist streak. I195 or the Julia Tuttle causeway that ran from I95 in Miami, East to end in Miami Beach had a few automobile pull overs that people used to either fish in, or sit by in the grass at Biscayne Bay. Well Caridad liked to get into it in the car, as dusk was falling into dark, to get seriously frisky for the thrill of potentially getting caught. When I mentioned the lyrics in Dr. Wu, you can imagine the frequency uptick, as well as a trip to the local Peaches music store for the cassette. 😉😂
Best damn SD song for me.
Do Your Gold Teeth II and Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning references the story of Taxi Driver, if you haven’t seen that movie watch it this week, it’s dark.
Re: Chain Lightning. Taxi Driver is a first. I don’t see that in those lyrics. I have always heard it refers to Hitler and the his personal Nazi bodyguards the SS (Schutzstaffel) whose “SS” insignia resembles lightning. Fagan even later admitted it was a song about 2 guys visiting a fascist rally. Fagan had a fascination with Hitler and had previously joked about making a song about the beer hall putsch in Munich in 1923.
Taxi Driver came out in '76, a year after Kay Lied, so how could they be referencing it?
It's clearly about a pair of Nazi's recounting their early days at the youth rallies
Dr Wu is such a great song and The sax was great
We were doing Steely Dan Sunday Morning 47 years ago…and Katy Lied got the most play, then the Royal Scam.
Daddy is cool and tasty but Doctor Wu is just on another level. The melody, structure, playing and lyrics plus a great song title.
Beautiful Wu-sy harmonies on this. One of their best IMO.
Phil Woods sax solo is worth the price of the album alone. A real gem.
My favorite SD song. Phil Woods alto sax solo and the last half of the last verse kill me every time. A+
Most folks overlook "Fire in the Hole" from Steely Dan's debut album 'Can't Buy a Thrill'. "Fire in the Hole" is total funk with a heavy layer of piano and pedal steel guitar - just unique.
Also, please hear Walter's western-flavored ballad "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)", sung beautifully by David Palmer, and accompanied by Skunk Baxter's heart-piercing pedal steel guitar once more.
Classic Dan. Note the album cover - the insect is a Katydid, which is a play on the album title Katy Lied (which came from a line in Dr. Wu, as you noted.
So many layers to it. These guys really are detail oriented lol
My favorite insect!
Two of my fav Dan tunes. When I intro someone to them, it's one of these. Thank you!
Hang in there, brother! We're all just figuring this shit out as we go along.
Dr Wu, my favorite
Spoke once with jazz great Phil Woods and I believe he was pleased that I loved his tasty, tasty solo on Doctor Wu.
The end of this song had foreshadowing of Asia for me. Dr. Wu….great song.
It's definitely a great song! I love finding gems like this. I'm gonna play this a lot lol I can already tell
Exactly, how about doubling the sax and drum solo. Started here, then showed up again on Aja.
Steely Dan’s lyrics, in general tend to slide into the seedy side of life. If you haven’t noticed! The name of the damn band says it all. And they love cord progressions! Do ‘Your Gold Teeth 2’
yes gold teeth 2
Two great tracks🥲
You are right about the piano, but the session guy playing the piano is the great Michael omartian. This is a perfect track to illustrate what Donald likes to do with the piano, doubling up the vocal parts with the piano.
I didn’t notice the humor in Daddy for a long time.”We know you’re smoking wherever you are”😏
L33, I can't thank you enough for this. My favorite SD song by far. I still get chills every time, 50 years later ❤. It speaks to me about addictive tendencies and the helplessness to resist them, in a way its hard to articulate .
So glad you enjoyed it, Robin. I loved this so much. Steely Sunday always makes me feel good :)
Hey!! I see Captain Beefheart back there. I was already a fan of you and your SD reactions but now...NOW you really got me. Subscribing right now. And I know you dislike fadeouts, but this is one of the best ones EVER. And those piano chords on the chorus are SO BEAUTIFUL.
A little factoid about Dan. Every one of their albums included a British musician called Victor Feldman, who was mainly a jazz vibraphonist who made dozens of albums and guested on dozens more. He was also the cousin of my father's second wife. My brothers both met him, but I was elsewhere at the time. So I failed to meet someone who played with one of my favourite bands! Ho hum...
The outro of Dr Wu is a precursor to the famous Aja outro with Steve Gadd and Wayne Shorter.
I definitely remember Dr. Wu, don’t remember the first song and I don’t think I know many songs from this album,but I Love Dr. Wu, thanks for sparking my interest to go listen to this album!
Ya, just about every Steely Dan song could go for at least twice as long. And some people think Deacon Blues is TOO long?? 😒It's like dinner at my brothers house when his wife says "more spaghetti?"..."Yes please". 🙂
I can't even imagine thinking Deacon Blues is too long.
Ya, me either! What's wrong with those people? LOL 😮
Your face in the thumbnail! Love it lol!
I can’t wait till you get to The Year Of The Cat by Al Stewart.
ua-cam.com/video/7yu1ZlYveyA/v-deo.html already did it!
my favorite Dan album!
Whoever Brad is… well, I won’t denigrate, but he is dead wrong. Back in the day, we waited the whole year for the next Dan album, and when it dropped, we wore out the tape (8-track, of course). I loved how groovy “Daddy” is. I was only 15 when it came out, and most of my friends who dug this band - few and far between, really,didn’t get the plentiful drug references. (I lived in Scranton, PA… not known for teenage musical sophistication)
Our young ears were graced by the Dan’s yearly releases from ‘72 through ‘80… pretty much helped me grow up!
And Dr. Wu is one of their greatest compositions!
Phil Woods on alto sax. Maybe the greatest sax solo in popular music…
Yeah Phil killed this... I want to hear more from him now. He made that song really work.
@@L33Reacts About a wk or 2 ago- a Donald Fagen video popped up on my youtube. It was a vid of him getting a jazz hall of fame award about 15 yrs ago. . When he sat down at the piano - he said something like-it's not fair that he had to perform right after Phil Woods did-haha. I'm sure Fagen was a big fan of Woods. It's a short video -but u will see Donald playing some great jazz piano and he performed his song "Florida Room" from his solo album Kamakiriad. If u want to see it-just look up Donald Fagen jazz award on youtube.
the great drummer a very young jeff pocaro of toto basically on the whole album what a talent !
_Chain Lightning_ Please! A favorite of a lot of long-time SD fans.
Re. the fades that end SD songs of the day: if you wanted a song to be played on Top-40 radio in those days, you still had to keep it short.
DJs loved to talk over the ends of songs, too (I used to HATE that) so they favored songs with fades to segue out of.
Woods' spastic solo and Porcaro's pounding drums during the fade-out here is, to me, an image of life slipping away from the OD'ed Doctor (or some other person close to our narrator). And it prefigures the death of Becker's girlfriend Roberta Stanley at his New York home in January 1980, from some sort of drug overdose.
@@louise_rose
Stanley?
Any relation to Owlsley Stanley?
@@Hare_deLune No idea, really.
The alto sax solo was played by the great Phil Woods.
Yeah that was a beautiful solo Phil did. Made that song work on another level!
Phil Woods also did fantastic guest alto solos for Just the Way You are by Billy Joel and Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon. There’s another one he did that I’ll remember soon.
CHAIN LIGHTNING!
Something i think everyone misses about this song "Dr Wu" is the singer is speaking with the doc about him with he woman the singer was with. The venom comes at the end of the song with the music getting chaotic and tentioned minor chordings, and the singer begins seeing his intent dawning in the doctors eyes so there is no reason to hide it anymore, "Can you hear me doctor? are you with me doctor?" Let me know if it sounds that way to you. lol
'Daddy', I've always imagined, is about the fictional narrator's father, who was always off hustling and sliding around. Until the day he ripped off the wrong people. If you want to pair something with Gold Teeth, do Any World That I'm Welcome To. Heavy song.
"I feel more like an adult when I listen to Steely Dan. Like I got all my shit together."
Yup, there's a name for that, ya know. It's known as having the Steely Dan T-shirt. 😆
This song feels so intimate and poetic, despite/along with the difficult subject matter (only half spoken out, as usual with the Dan). It's a real chamber performance, very subtle and with such a lovely groove. I love how Donald's vocal style communicates that the guy in the lyrics doesn't really want to tell what happened, it's too embarrassing, yet feels he has to get it out of himself...
its a tribute to the man who helped Walter get off Heroin
@@ripvanwinkle2002 The way I read it', Doctor Wu is the dealer, "the main man" and the narrator finds that Wu has OD'ed and is not coming back anymore. Imagine him standing over the doctor's unresponsive body: "Are you with me, Doctor? Can you HEAR me, Doctor?".
The Minutemen’s cover of “Dr. Wu” is worth a listen. It’s sacrilege, but it’s beautiful. You won’t feel like an adult hearing it !
The Dan were always oblique in their lyrics, just hinting what the song was about (also, they didn't want t come across as moralizing about these touchy subjects).. Most people would agree that this one is about drug addiction, but what about the specifics? Who is Doctor Wu and what does he do? Well, here is the best explanation I've seen - it was posted several years ago as a comment at another upload of the song, and for years showed as one of the top comments. Then for some reason, the Tube tagged it as "suspected spam" or the like and pushed it far down into the mass of those that have just one thumbs-up or so, despite it still being one of the most thumbs-upped, with more than a hundred likes. Weird, but here goes... (and no, it's not my own of course)
"Narrator is a dope fiend. Doc Wu is his dealer and Katy is heroin (slang at the time). Fagen called this song "a love/dope triangle". Doc Wu is supposed to be doing him a solid finding him dope whenever he's strung out but all of a sudden he stops showing up. Our narrator goes down to the seedy part of town by the port to see if he can score some drugs when to his surprise who does he find down there? Doc Wu is passed out on the dock with a needle in his arm. He was supposed to be an ordinary guy but Katy got the better of him too. The reason he's not showing up anymore is cause he's a junkie now and in even worse shape than our narrator. He arrives just in time to see that doc Wu won't be coming around anymore cause he's od'd. "Are you with me doctor? Can you hear me doctor?""
Ties up a lot of loose ends for me, and I think the point where the piano becomes heavier and more mournful at "Katy lies, you can see it in her eyes" matches the moment when the guy realizes that the trip is not for free, that there is a final price to be paid - the moment when the loss comes to the surface for him.
Chain lightning flows in the album order and both songs are again too short on their own but together satisfying. Still too short but I believe this is the most underrated, under appreciated Steely Dan album.
Yet two more SD songs that name drop east coast locations, even though Donald and Walter had been working out of LA for years by this time. I remember the sax break in "Doctor Wu" was used in radio ads for a Bay Area audio/video store. I knew it from there long before I knew the song! I actually prefer "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More" because it did a nice job combining lyrics and groove. IMO it's a throwback to 'Countdown to Ecstasy", and I'm guessing was from that older songbook.
THIS SONG HINTS AT THE INTRUSION OF HEROIN INTO THE BAND IE WALTER BEKER,ALSO REFERINCED IN BLACK COW, AS DONALDS FRUSTRATION GREW,WALTER FINALLYWENT TO THE CARRIBEAN TO CLEAN UP,HENCE THE LONG DURATION BETWEEN ALBUMS I HAVE BEEN A DAN FAN FOR OVER50 YEARS STILL MY FAVE,DELVE INTO SOME OF DONALDS SOLO WORK I.E. SUNKIN CONDOS. NITE FLY CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BEST LP;S EVER RECORDED.
Good day, your mind is going to be blown.
While everything Dan recorded was fabulous Dr Wu is their most beautiful and cutting song for me. Many people (including myself) had a cherished Katy who lied. Dr Wu is a song of disillusionment and despair followed by redemption thru the mystical figure of Dr Wu. I see the mystical Dr as the alter ego of Donald who came to his rescue in his hour of need
I notice you haven't discovered the Dan's Two Against Nature album that came out after a 20 year hiatus to win the Grammy for Best Pop Album of the year. You might get a chuckle out of How About a Kiss For Your Cousin Dupree?
Alto sax by Phil Woods -- per the vinyl album back cover.
Yup!
Larry Carlton - pretty fly for a jazz guy.
If you notice in the first song, he says Lucy still loves her coke and rum, rather than rum and coke, which is quite different
I did catch that, but it moved so quickly that I forgot to say something lol
Wow... nice catch. Listened to this song a million times but never caught that myself
any world that Im welcome to is Boss
Nice work. Next week try Everyone's gone to the movies
Yes, gold teeth 2.
Bought this when it came out. On the cover, (one of my favorite album covers) is a katydid but did she really lie?
It's totally ok to refer to these guys as a 70s type of sound 'cause in some ways they saved the 70s from being a decade of disco
going down the steely dan rabbit hole? enjoy
lol. Real grown up music!!
Grown up Music that a lot of us digged as teenagers.
Lee, I love your steely Sundays! Please check out Marcus King!
Love Dr. Wu! A much better name than Rodney Dangerfield's Dr. Vinnie Boombatz! Yes, alto sax.
Highest level......
Minutemen do a version of “Dr. Wu” and it’s awesome if not the exact opposite of Steely’s version.
As a general rule, if you can't figure out what a classic rock song is about, it's about heroin.
Finally!! Wu hoo...
Dr Wu yo
Chain Lightning
I always look in the comments for Dr. Wu to see if anyone mentions that Katy is actually heroin. Someone smarter than me commented in another reaction vid, and I look for mention in other comment sections. If no one points it out, then I feel compelled to do it myself; it gives the lyrics their full dimensions, in my opinion.
If you don't do a deep dive on the lyrics, Everyone's gone to the movies has a catchy groove and good hook.
One of the few true Steely Dan love songs, but is the subject a woman, drugs, or both? The lyrics are so incredibly clever that it can really go either way, and that’s the beauty of it.
I’ve often called the Katy Lied album….and especially Doctor Wu “Aja Jr.” because they were definitely showing flashes of that sound from Aja, but then they took a bit of a detour with Royal Scam before they finally got there.
👍🏼🎸🎼❤️😎
phil woods
Phil Woods Alto Sax
Pretty sure they both wrote the lyrics. At least that is what Donald says
Good dance party on drugs.
Walter usually had as much to do with lyrics as Donald.
People still debate Wu’s lyrics but I’ve come down on the side that thinks Katie is the heroin
Why you looking shit up in the middle of the song?
So I don't say something wrong and get a thousand comments about the same thing
Katy is reffering to H!
You're way too polite. I know that comes from taking requests. Because you're in the awkward position of saying too much negative. Not that you would on this song. Maybe you did love it but most of us out here. I do think especially from that era could have done without this. Not that the group isn't good at what they do generally, but I would have passed on this.
I listen to a lot of music reaction videos. And I've always believed that the risk of playing music by request put you in the orchestra position of being a 100% honest on your reaction.
??? This wasn't even a request lol. And you posted this before you could have even seen my recap about it. It's still premiering and this is 6 minutes old. Nice try.
You could always leave. That's an option. Maybe don't click on things just to complain, huh kid?
Whoever Brad is… well, I won’t denigrate, but he is dead wrong. Back in the day, we waited the whole year for the next Dan album, and when it dropped, we wore out the tape (8-track, of course). I loved how groovy “Daddy” is. I was only 15 when it came out, and most of my friends who dug this band - few and far between, really,didn’t get the plentiful drug references. (I lived in Scranton, PA… not known for teenage musical sophistication)
Our young ears were graced by the Dan’s yearly releases from ‘72 through ‘80… pretty much helped me grow up!
And Dr. Wu is one of their greatest compositions!