Donald Fagen and Walter Becker meet at the Bard College in New York in 1967. Fagen, a piano player, hears someone playing blues guitar in the student lounge and decides he must introduce himself. He discovers Becker playing a red Epiphone guitar and finds that they share the same interests in music and ironic senses of humor. A partnership is born.
They form several college bands including “The Leather Canary” (which fellow Bard student Chevy Chase sat in with a couple of times) and “The Don Fagen Trio.” Fagen and Becker also start to write songs together.
Fagen graduates Bard in 1969 with an English degree. Becker also leaves Annandale. The two of them move to Brooklyn, New York and decide to peddle their songs at the famous Brill Building in Manhattan. They don’t meet with much success, but they make an important early connection with Kenny Vance of Jay and the Americans. Vance helps them record some demos of their early material and gets them some odd jobs including doing the soundtrack for the low-budget Richard Pryor film “You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It.” Vance also gets Becker and Fagen gigs as back-up musicians on Jay and the Americans’ 1970-71 tour. Jay Black disaffectionately labels Donald and Walter as “Starkweather and Manson.”
Fagen and Becker also meet another aspiring producer, Gary Katz, in New York. Shortly afterward, Katz gets a job as staff producer at ABC Records in Los Angeles and also secures two staff songwriter positions for Fagen and Becker. With the hopes of making it big as songwriters, Donald and Walter move to L.A. in November 1971.
But their songs are too sophisticated for the other bands on the label, such as Three Dog Night, and Dusty Springfield, so they secretly put together their own band a long with an other guitarist, Danny Dias.
But what to call them?
Well, having a sense of humor, they decided to name the band “Steely Dan”, after a dildo in William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch“.
Kid Charlemagne
Kid Charlemagne is a song that was loosely inspired by the exploits of the infamous 1960s San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley.
On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home
The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley’s acid was famed for its purity, although the last line is clearly a reference to the famous psychedelic bus named Furthur, which was used by the Merry Pranksters.
The final verse foreshadows the main reason for Owsley’s eventual bust:
Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are
Owsley and another person were arrested after their car ran out of gas. Walter Becker told a taxi cab driver in New York City that he was with the band Steely Dan. The cab driver told him what he thought the worst song lyrics were. When Becker asked the driver what they were, the driver responded, “Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car.”
http://djallyn.org/media/Steely_Dan-Kid_Charlemagne.flvWhile the music played you worked by candlelight
Those San Francisco nights
You were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That’s when you turned the world around
Did you feel like Jesus
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes
On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home
Every A-Frame had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You’d go to L.A. on a dare
And you’d go it alone
Could you live forever
Could you see the day
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade awayCHORUS:
Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid CharlemagneNow your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those dayglow freaks who used to paint the face
They’ve joined the human race
Some things will never change
Son you were mistaken
You are obsolete
Look at all the white men on the streetGet along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid CharlemagneClean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you areCareful what you carry
‘Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw in their eyesGet along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid Charlemagne
Break