Donald Fagen's tribute to Ray Charles: "What I Do"

Gone are the days when I smuggled a new Donald Fagen, or Steely Dan, album across the threshold of casa del ionesco with all the guilty anticipation and incredulous anxiety of the class nerd who, inexplicably, charmed the prom queen and couldn't quite believe he was about to be accorded the privilege of unwrapping such an aesthetically-appealing alien artefact at his leisure, and for his pleasure, within the comfort of his own apartment.

Passing immediate judgement on Don's (and the Dan's) output is inadvisable. As I said in Planet Dan :

A statutory prohibition should be placed upon Dan reviews until such time as the reviewer has adequately assimilated their latest languorous, languid, bittersweet, blissful, cryptic, cynical, entrancing, encoded communiqué into the bloodstream.

Like love affairs Don & Walt’s work can only be evaluated and contextualized in retrospect. As assuredly as ephemeral lipstick traces mutate into life's lingering leitmotifs, the Dan’s spectral melodies and enigmatic lyrics haunt past, present and future, defying definition.

If Morph the Cat never quite promises to be an inexhaustible repository of "sensations which stagger the mind", à la Aja or The Nightfly, it clearly contains at least one stone-cold Don classic. Fagen's tribute to Ray Charles, What I Do, is superb, and the lyric is as erotically-energised as doing wrong with Miss Right in Manhattan at midnight:

I say Ray, why do girls treat you nice that way
He said it's not what I know, what I think or say
It's what I do, It's what I do
It's deep beneath the skin
It's what I major in
It's what I do

Yes I come to play and I bring big soul
Well I could rock long before they named it
Rock & roll
It's what I do, it's what I do
I'm specially qualified
To keep 'em satisfied
It's what I do

You turn the lamp down low
And make her feel secure
You gotta show the girl
That she's the one you adore
If you want that sugar to pour

You bring some church but you leave no doubt
As to what kind of love you love to shout about
Its what I do, its what I do
If you can't dance by now The Raelettes will show you how
It's what I do

You turn the lamp down low
And make her feel secure
You gotta show the girl
That she's the one you adore
If you want that sugar to pour

He says Don don't despair- just take some time
You find your bad self- you're going to do just fine
It's what I do, it's what I do
It's not some game I play
It's in my DNA
It's what I do