42 Quotes by Donald Fagen

I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.

As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.

I'm starting to get older, and began to think about mortality a little more. My mother died in 2003 and that was a big shock. When your parents start to die off, that's going to be a revelation. So for me, this album - although it might sound quite cheery - is really talking about death.

I tried to grow up. Honest. Didn’t quite happen. I guess I’m someone for whom youth still seems more real than the present, or the half century in between. And why not? I'm deeply underwhelmed by most contemporary art, literature, music, films, TV, the heinous little phones, money talk, real estate talk, all that stuff. The Internet, which at first seemed so fascinating, appears to be evolving into something even worse than TV, but we'll see.

We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.

Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy.

What a beautiful world this will be What a glorious time to be free

I've never done it before. I might do a few Steely Dan things that I particularly like, but it'll mainly be my stuff.

Anthemic rock music is inherently fascist – anything intended to move huge masses of people is politically offensive to me.