Today’s classic song of the day is “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” by Steely Dan. This one’s off their 1974 album, Pretzel Logic. It was released as the B-side of their “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” single, in April of 1974.
“Any Major Dude Will Tell You” is (fairly) optimistic and comforting, for a Dan song, with the protagonist reassuring his down-in-the-dumps friend that:
Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again
I love that line, “Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again.” It is true, isn’t it?
“Any Major Dude Will Tell You” was written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, of course. Musically, the song has a laid-back acoustic feel with both acoustic guitar and piano. It’s one of the last tunes recorded to feature the remains of the original Steely Dan band, including Skunk Baxter and Denny Dias on those dueling electric guitars. They were supplemented by session aces Dean Parks on acoustic guitar, David Paich on electric piano, Chuck Rainey on bass, and Jim Gordon on drums.
BTW, I could have picked several other songs from Pretzel Logic as a classic song of the day, including “Barrytown,” “Parker’s Band,” and “Charlie Freak.” Becker and Fagen were writing deliberate three-minute pop songs on this album, and they were damned good at it. Quality stuff throughout, their first truly great album, IMHO.
Little-known fact: There’s a line in “Any Major Dude” about “Have you ever seen a squonk’s tears?” According to the Wikipedia, a squonk is “a mythical creature that when hunted could cry itself into a pool of tears when cornered.” Now you know.
[…] Pretzel Logic was a turning point album for Steely Dan. Their first two albums, Can’t Buy a Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy were both primarily band-based and, while they included some great songs, were a little less polished and a little more rock and roll than their later output. Pretzel Logic bridged that gap, comprised of songs that were deliberately short and radio friendly. (At 4:33, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” was the longest song on the record; just about everything else timed out at three and a half minutes or less.) The result was a highly listenable collection of tunes that rank among the Dan’s best, including “Barrytown,” “Parker’s Band,” “Charlie Freak,” and, one of my all-time favorites, “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.” […]