“Haitian Divorce” (Steely Dan)

When I was a freshman at Indiana University during the 1976-1977 schoolyear, everybody in my dorm was listening to Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, while I was listening to Stevie Wonder and Weather Report. And Steely Dan. Lots of Steely Dan.

The Steely Dan album that was big my freshman year was The Royal Scam, which was released during my last month in high school, May of 1976. It was a constant on my Sansui turntable in my little dorm room and one of my favorite songs on the album is today’s classic song of the day. “Haitian Divorce” was the second track on side two and , while not released as a single (in the U.S.; it was in the UK, where it hit #19 on the charts), it’s a terrific tune.

“Haitian Divorce” is little slice-of-life story song about a woman who marries quickly, tires of that marriage quickly, and heads to Haiti for a quickie divorce. (At that point in time, only one person’s approval was necessary to get a divorce in Haiti.) While in Haiti, she hooks up with a local and, when she returns to the States, finds out she’s pregnant with the local’s baby.

That’s it, in a nutshell. The lyrics, in addition to being succinct and not near as obtuse as those on most Dan tunes, is full of quotable lines. The song starts by setting the scene:

Babs and Clean Willie were in love, they said
So in love, the preacher’s face turned red
Soon everybody knew the thing was dead

After Babs gets her quickie divorce she decides to stick around and what happens next, happens next:

At the Grotto in the greasy chair
Sits the Charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair
When she smiled, she said it all
The band was hot, so
They danced the famous merengue
Now we dolly back
Now we fade to black

I love the stage directions, “Now we dolly back, now we fade to black.” Very cinematic. (And that “fade to black” has a double meaning that I just caught after all these years…)

Back in the good ol’ U.S. of A., Babs tries to return to her normal life, but something’s different, as detailed in the final verse:

Tearful reunion in the USA
Day by day, those memories fade away
Some babies grow in a peculiar way
It changed, it grew, and everybody knew, yeah
Semi-mojo, who’s this kinky so-and-so?

That last line is just a killer—and sung with tremendous bite by Donald Fagen.

Musicians on the track were a stellar group of studio pros. Drumming legend Bernard Purdie supplied the reggae-like beat while Dean Parks played the cool guitar solo—although Walter Becker later ran it through a talk box for that distinctive wah-wahish effect.

When all is said and done, “Haitian Divorce” is one of Steely Dan’s best tracks. It and all the other songs on The Royal Scam have truly stood the test of time—I listened to them a ton back in college and still do, today. Great stuff.