“My Old School” is an early one from Steely Dan, and today’s classic song of the day. Included on their second album, Countdown to Ecstasy, “My Old School” was released as a single in October of 1973 and went all the way to #63 on the Billboard Hot 100. Not one of their bigger hits, to be sure, but a track that’s had lasting impact.
As noted, “My Old School” is relatively early Steely Dan, back when the group was actually a group, not just Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and a select group of studio musicians. The musicians on this track were those guys that actually toured with Becker and Fagen, including Jeff Baxter on lead guitar, Denny Dias on rhythm guitar, and Jim Hodder on drums. Donald Fagen played keyboards, of course, and Walter Becker played bass. That’s a real band, right there.
“My Old School” is slightly less cryptic than most Steely Dan songs. The lyrics relate a real incident at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where Becker was a student. In May of 1969, right before the end of Becker’s senior year, there was a big drug bust on campus that resulted in the arrest of 44 individuals, or about 10% of the small school’s student population. One of those arrested, not surprisingly, was Donald Fagen. Fagen and the other “longhairs” in the group got their longish hair forcibly shortened when they were checked into the Poughkeepsie jail. Fagen was charged with “the sale of a dangerous drug,” with bail set at $5,000 apiece. Mr. Fagen was so scarred by the experience that he vowed to never go back to his old school.
Here’s what Fagen remembers about the incident:
”These were the days when there was a ‘war on longhairs,’ as they used to call it, and Bard’s in this kind of rural district. They picked up about 50 kids just at random. There were a few warrants, and one was for me, which was based totally on false testimony.”
It’s all in the lyrics:
I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won’t do
Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I’m never going back
To My Old School
The drug bust occurred on a weekend when Fagen’s girlfriend Dorothy White and his pal Walt Becker were visiting, and they got caught up in the arrests. (Ms. White’s “daddy was quite surprised” to find her “with the working girls in the county jail.”) Bard bailed out the students involved, but not Walt or Dorothy, since they weren’t students. That garnered Mr. Fagen’s lasting ire against the school.
As to other references in the lyrics, the Wolverine that took Fagen back to Annandale (home of Bard College, remember) was the train that ran from New York City to Detroit, with a stop at Rhinecliff station near Annandale. The reference to William and Mary refers to Bard being called “the William and Mary of the north.” Daddy G was G. Gordon Liddy, of future Watergate fame, who was then District Attorney of Dutchess County, New York, which encompasses Annandale and Bard College.
So when Fagen sings “I did not think the girl could be so cruel,” he’s not referring to his girlfriend but rather to Bard College itself; all the vitriol directed at the third-person female throughout the song is actually directed towards the college. And when Fagen sings that he “heard the whistle but I can’t go,” it’s referencing his refusal to attend his graduation ceremony, due to the college’s complicity in the drug bust.
Taken as a whole, then, “My Old School” is not a kiss off to an old girlfriend; it’s a song written to his girlfriend about Bard College. Got that?
Musically, “My Old School” is notable for the wild lead guitar of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. I also dig the descending sixteenth-note sax part after the line, “California tumbles into the sea.” Smart arranging, that, by old pro Jimmie Haskell.
In any instance, “My Old School” is a balls-out rocker, with angry lyrics sang angrily by Donald Fagen. It’s even better live, as witnessed in today’s daily bonus video of the day. It’s Steely Dan, the real band, performing “My Old School” really live on the August 31, 1973, episode of The Midnight Special. Dig Skunk’s playing—it is ferocious!
