This song has grown on me over the years. I remember reading about the group Deacon Blues, who said this song was the best song Steely Dan has ever made. I was surprised by that, and it made me listen to it more carefully. At first i didn’t notice this song. It seemed mellow, soft. Which is exactly what it is. Languid.

The lyrics. I read them today, a couple of times. I did a search on duckduckgo.com too and finally found an interesting article on stylusmagazine.com, my one time fave website. Damn, it stopped in 2007, so long ago already. It is still online, happy with that! This article called Top Ten Obscure Steely Dan lyrics. Deacon Blues is not in the top ten list, but it is mentioned in the intro.

This is one of the strangest lyrics ever put to wax—and it’s attached to a song that’s still played in elevators and department stores all across America. If you listen to “Deacon Blues” and only hear lite pop, the joke’s on you; with just a little close-listening, and the help of that English degree you never thought you’d use, it’s clear that “Deacon Blues” isn’t about a melancholy priest, but about a young hipster celebrating being a drunk, jazz-loving loser in an America that only cares about college football teams. And herein lies the greatness of Steely Dan: they wrote complex, mysterious songs disguised as catchy pop tunes. They’re both the most MOR and least MOR band ever. They’re accessible and subversive at the same time. If that isn’t the definition of great art, what is?

Listening to this song, reading this article makes me realize i hardly know enough about Steely Dan’s lyrics, or any other group for that matter. I really really should put in a lot more effort!

*sigh*

Anyway, you may listen to my recording, which in my opinion is extremely horrible. Better you listen to the original version. With the music, the saxophone, the female singers in the background, the gitar and bass and drums and whatever more. Then listen to the tellings of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen themselves, and some other people too.

Enjoy!

Deacon Blues – Steely Dan
This is the day
Of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers
Wild gamblers
That’s all in the past

You call me a fool
You say it’s a crazy scheme
This one’s for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I’ll make it this time
I’m ready to cross that fine line

Learnt to work the saxophone
I, I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
(Aah)
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I, I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama, “The Crimson Tide”
(Aah)
Call me Deacon Blues
(Deacon Blues)

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
I’ll rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I’ll make it my home sweet home

Learnt to work the saxophone
I, I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
(Aah)
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I, I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama, “The Crimson Tide”
(Aah)
Call me Deacon Blues
(Deacon Blues)

This is the night
Of the expanding man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I’ll be what I want to be

I learnt to work the saxophone
I, I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
(Aah)
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I, I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama, “The Crimson Tide”
(Aah)
Call me Deacon Blues
(Deacon Blues)

The original song on the album which i actually do have! And yes, i did buy it when it was released, in 1977.

Steely Dan discuss the production behind “Deacon Blues” from “Aja.”

OK, this is not my favourite Scritti Politti song, but it is interesting. I’ve known this song since 1986, when i bought the album Songs to remember. I’ve been practising getting the words and the order right for years. Nowadays it’s easy, you simply search for lions after slumber lyrics and there it is. Although, i did have to add my own shit. Ha!

So i admit, i still don’t know the entire lyrics out of my head. It is hard, since the structure of the text is so uniform. The rhythm of the song lyrics is less uniform, some words go fast, some go slower. Some go really slow. I still had to sing along with the song itself a couple of times to memorize the entire structure of the song.
I did leave out the instrumental bit. That is the hard part when you sing a cappella. I can do some la la la’s and ooh ooh ooh’s, but with this song i simply didn’t feel like doing that. So i skipped it.

So, even when this song isn’t my favourite scritti song of all time, i do love it. I even made a present with in 2005, Lions after slumber. A fitting name.

I hope you will enjoy this one. 🙂

SCRITTI POLITTI
Lions After Slumber

My diplomacy, my security, my hope and my ice-cream
My tomorrow and my temperature, my lips and my selfishness
My cigarette, my uncertainty, my penetration
My notebook and my limit, my importance and my glycerine
My customer, my function, my lawlessness, my charm
My hunger, my refusal, my tissue and my vodka
My ommission, my ability, my telephone and my holler
My relaxing, my distress, my bedroom, my cassette
My dictation and my pulse, my fortune and my death
My flake and my restlessness, my headache and my dirt
My paper and my charity, my rose and my pallor
My guess and my closet, my light ‘n’ my time
My worry, my perversity, my transgression
My temptation and my polythene, my gunshot
My jealousy and my water
My demands ‘n’ my angels ‘n’ my waiting ‘n’ my distance
My death, my curtness, my insulin, my memory
My partner ‘n’ my sadness, my story, my wantoness
My wish, my despair, my erasure, my plantation
My white chocolate, my thoughtlessness, my gracelessness
My courage and my crying, my pockets ‘n’ my mistakes
My body and my sex, my gaze and my helplessness
My letter, my sugar, my homework, my walk
My records, my smile and my struggle
My reflection, my eyelid, my fragility, my discretion
My hair, my austerity, my tattoo, my demise
My fooling and my terror, my problem and my judgement
Oh my disguise, my tongue, my own shit
My ownership, my formula, my property, my thought, my razor
My blessing and my silence, my lust and my practice
My sincerity, my penecillin, my window and my androgyny
My mother, my recorder, my pity and my posing
My light, my carelessness, my drummer, my drummer, my drummer, my drummer
My tenderness ‘n’ my car, my undoing and my history
My bottle and my drugs, my drugs, my drugs
Tomorrow, my temperature, my lips and my selfishness
My cigarette, my uncertainty, my penetration, my notebook

My limit, my importance, my glycerine, my customer, my function
My lawlessness, my charm and my hunger
My refusal, my tissue, my vodka, my admission

My ability and my telephone, my holler, my relaxing
My distress and my bedroom, my restlessness, my headache
My dirt, my paper, charity, my rose
My pallor, my guess and my closet,
my light ‘n’ my time, my worry, my perversity
My transgression honey, my temptation honey
My polythene, my jealousy
My water, my demands, my angels
My waiting, my distance, my death, my curtness, my insulin
My memory, my partner, my refrigerator
My sadness, my story, my wantoness, my skipping
My wish and my despair, my erasure, my plantation, my chocolate
My thoughtlessness, my gracelessness, my courage and my crying
My pockets, my homework
Like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number
Oh yeah

The orginal

The single version

I mentioned buying her album A Distant Shore in 1983 in the Memories post in June this year. I loved it when i bought it, and i still love it now.

I also do enjoy her writing. I haven’t read her books yet, but i’m sure i will some day. I do read her column in the New Statesman.

This song Plain Sailing is about how your life will never be that, plain sailing. It simply doesn’t exist. I don’t think you should want it anyway. It is an illusion. Even if you are happy, with friends, with someone to love, with work in your life, there are always rocks and dry periods and sandbanks to try to get you off course. You simply have to deal with that.

My wise words for today 🙂

Enjoy!

Plain Sailing – Tracey Thorn
Meetings arranged, they say, never work out
I say we’ve proved them wrong without a doubt
I can’t remember now just what we said
I never could have guessed what lay ahead
As I ran towards you up the stairs
Did a voice in my ear cry, ‘Beware’?

Even now I’m surprised you recall
Such a short time it took me to fall
Pretending that my heart still lay elsewhere
When in truth I had long ceased to care
For what I thought I’d never replace
Til in my heart you left him no space

You say, you wonder what was it I saw?
I say ‘Oh, I don’t recall anymore’
My first impressions have been left behind
Replaced now by feelings and more lost in kind

Sure that you know but you never can tell
When I think I understand you so well
Shakes me that you were a constant surprise
Or so you appear in my eyes

Tempting to think now it will all be plain sailing
Old enough now to know there’s no such thing

The original