Steely Dan - Album By Album - Everything Must Go

(from the Everything Must Go department)

This might be the last review I completed - I'm still going through the archives.  Sadly - this is probably the last of the studio Steely Dan albums, since Walter Becker has passed.  I do hope that Donald releases some of the Steely Dan outtakes.  There aren't many, but there are a few - Steely Dan was playing live versions of these songs at some of their final shows with Walter.

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Passenger Lizzy: What's the deal with Everything Must Go?

Walter Becker: It's a god-damn party record! You know what I mean? 

Passenger Lizzy: Yup

Walter Becker: It's like up! You know, the tempos are good. The lyrics are, you know, sparkling and, you know, bright and scintillating. Even the grim depressing ones, you know - which there, lord knows there's plenty - are just kind of, you know, make you want to dance or something.

- Taxicab Confessions DVD from the CD/DVD of Everything Must Go
​

And so - as far as we know - we come to the last Steely Dan album: Everything Must Go. I know I'm in the minority here - but I think this is a terrific album, and a perfect swan song for them.

At the time, I don't think anyone but Don'n'Walt knew it was their last - but - boy - in retrospect - did they lay it out for us.

Starting with the very first track The Last Mall. I think it's worth printing the lyrics here:

Attention all shoppers 
It's Cancellation Day 
Yes the Big Adios 
Is just a few hours away 

It's last call 
To do your shopping 
At the Last Mall 

You'll need the tools for survival 
And the medicine for the blues 
Sweet treats and surprises 
For the little buckaroos 

It's last call 
To do your shopping 
At the Last Mall 

We've got a sweetheart Sunset Special 
On all of the standard stuff 
'Cause in the morning --that gospel morning 
You'll have to do for yourself when the going gets tough 

Roll your cart back up the aisle 
Kiss the checkout girls goodbye 
Ride the ramp to the freeway 
Beneath the blood orange sky 

It's last call 
To do your shopping 
At the Last Mall 
​

They touch on it all, don't they?

• Drugs? "Tools for survival - and the Medicine for the Blues" - check.  
• Steely Dan Skeevy-ness? "Sweet treats and surprises for the little buckaroos" - check.  
• Post apocalyptic wasteland a la King of The World? "Ride the ramp to the freeway Beneath the blood orange sky" - check.

Plus - using the live band from the 2vN tour, this doesn't sound robotic. Almost sounds like a real band playing - which it was at this point. Just like on their first albums. 

Also of note - Walter and Donald play on every track. Again - this is something that ties it back to the beginnings of Steely Dan. And - just like then - recorded on analog tape, no less. Sure - I think there may have been some digital editing here and there - but still. 

(In fact, I know there was digital editing: Steely Dan 'Everything Must Go' | Mixonline )

Next up - Things I Miss the Most. Part tongue in cheek - part true regret. Another stellar tune on this album.

Blues Beach is a swinging tune. You kind of need it after the 1 - 2 punch of the opening. Plus - it has some interesting chord changes going on in the background. Again - exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to hear more of on 2vN. Maybe not the ultimate track of all ultimate tracks - but far more interesting to me than the low points on previous albums. Donald has mentioned it's kind of a successor to Deacon Blues:

To me it had a lot more in common with “Deacon Blues” and the idea of a sort of bohemian utopia. In “Blues Beach,” the guy definitely has mixed feelings about the place once he gets there - hence the line “the long sad Sunday of the early resigned”.​

Godwhacker I take at pretty much face value. They've denied it's about George W.:

Q: Is ‘Godwhacker’ George W. Bush?
WB: Somebody else asked us that, but no, we didn’t think of that.
DF: We were just thinking of the Western deity –
WB: Mr. Big –​

Donald has also said:

"One more word about my mother: She died horribly of Alzheimer's. One time, after not seeing her for a while, I visited her in a nursing home in Ohio. As I walked towards her, she stared at me with great interest and then said, "You know, I've always liked you very much." Not long after that, she was gone. How do you like that?

A couple of days later, I started writing a lyric for this song "Godwhacker," which Walter and I completed and recorded for a Steely Dan CD. It's about an elite squad of assassins whose sole assignment is to find a way into heaven and take out God. If the Deity actually existed, what sane person wouldn't consider this to be justifiable homicide?"
​

I dig everything about this song - especially the melody and tasty guitar licks. I really enjoy it when I hear it live, too. It's been a mainstay in their sets for quite a while now.

Next up - the first real, official Walter Becker vocal on a (non-live) Steely Dan album. Slang of Ages is a perfect Walter song, with his trademark lyrical point of view and wordplay:

These tabs look iffy -- you say they're good 
Let's roll with the homeys -- knock on wood  ​

I really appreciate the care they took on his vocal here. It really works - and plays to his strengths. I was kind of hoping they'd use this as a blueprint for future Walter vocals, but - sadly - not to be.

Green Book - enigmatic porn sexiness. Catchy too. I think this one is better left less analyzed.

Pixeleen - it can be interpreted on many levels. To me, it kind of sounds like the narrator is watching a perfect Computer Generated female action hero movie, while his daughter talks on the phone. At the very end - it kind of sounds like a prescient inditement of the Hollywood casting system. Maybe that's even his kid in trouble? Or he's imagining if his kid were in trouble? Not exactly sure - but somehow, I kind of understand this song - maybe not on a conscious level - but I get it.

Now - one of my favorite songs on the entire album - Lunch With Gina. Dang - this song is great. Catchy as all get out - and the lyric writing structure is superb. Told in backwards chronological order - Memento style - it's about a relationship that's gone dangerously off the rails. Kudos to the soloing on this track too. Just jumps off the record in the best way.

And - finally - the title track Everything Must Go. Donald and Walter's farewell to Steely Dan and the work they'd created together. The last bit sums it all up, to me:

Can it be the sorry sun is rising 
Guess it's time for us to book it 
Talk about the famous road not taken 
In the end we never took it 
And if somewhere on the way 
We got a few good licks in 
No one's ever gonna know 
'Cause we're goin' out of business 
Everything must go 
​

For me - a victory lap of an album. One that stands firmly with their 70's releases, finally escaping from the prison they'd been in since Gaucho.

Again - I know I'm in the minority here. Most folks hear this one and think - huh - half assed Dan. But - to me - there's nothing further from the truth. They really had come to the end of their time together, and managed to put out one more record - a valedictory set. And - then - they were gone.

Everything Must Go.

Cheers,
Paul