We’ve Been Overdue for a Steely Dan Smackdown

The things that pass for music he can’t understand. Donald Fagen, noted bodacious cowboy and Steely Dan front man, has gotten wind of a cover band at the Republican National Convention playing “Reelin’ in the Years” for attendees — a move that, while not illegal in the complicated enterprise of music rights, is making Fagen’s everlasting summer fade a little faster. (Well, he did just get off a tour with the Eagles.) “Hey Sixwire,” he addressed the band in a July 18 social-media post. “If you want to play our music, how about playing ‘The Man in the Tinfoil Hat’?” The song, a collaboration between Fagen and fellow sonic iconoclast Todd Rundgren, was released in 2017 as a diss track to then-President Donald Trump. Hidden among the dripping Katy Lied–esque grooves are lyrics that taunt, “He hasn’t got the time for losers unless they do as he commands, / He’s writing checks to his accusers with those tiny little hands.” At the time, Rundgren said Fagen had wanted to go “full bore” with the song and its release, and it indeed ended up causing a bit of a news cyclone for the gentlemen. “It was just me and Donald trying to make ourselves feel better,” he explained, “by doing something instead of nothing.” This logic tracks. They know stowin’ away the time isn’t a good thing.

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