Today is the Friday after Thanksgiving here in the United States, what we call Black Friday. That’s because it’s the day that shoppers go crazy snatching up ridiculous deals on all sorts of merchandise, racking up sales so big that merchants who might have been in the red all year long make enough money to finally go into the black.
Today’s classic song of the day, Steely Dan’s “Black Friday,” isn’t about the Black Friday shopping frenzy. Instead, it’s about another Black Friday, September 24, 1869. On that day, greedy investors tried to corner the market on gold by buying as much of it as they could and driving up the price. Unfortunately for them, the government found out about their plan and released $4 million worth of gold into the market, which drove down the price and drove many investors into destitution. (In the song, the protagonist has plans to flee to Australia with his ill-gotten gains.)
“Black Friday was written, as were all Steely Dan tunes, by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. It was included on their 1975 album Katy Lied, which is one of my favorites of theirs. It was also released as a single on May of 1975, peaking at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As with most tracks on Katy Lied and subsequent albums, the Dan utilized a small army of session musicians to record “Black Friday,” including Michael Omartian on acoustic piano, David Paich on Hohner electric piano, and Jeff Porcaro on drums. The guitar solo, however, was not farmed out; Walter Becker played this one himself, using Denny Dias’ Fender Stratocaster, which Denny just happened to leave in the studio that day.
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, Steely Dan in a then-rare live performance of “Black Friday” in 2000. (That’s the amazing John Herrington playing the guitar solo on this one.) Dig it!
