Donald Fagen Reflects on the Birth of Steely Dan and the Roots of a Singular Sound
In a revealing conversation with Paul Shaffer, Donald Fagen offered a clear and grounded account of how Steely Dan was formed and how its distinctive musical identity began to take shape. Rather than mythologizing the past, Fagen spoke plainly about the band’s early days, emphasizing circumstance, shared taste, and gradual evolution rather than grand design.
Fagen explained that his musical partnership with Walter Becker began during their college years at Bard College. Both were deeply interested in jazz from an early age, describing themselves as devoted but awkward young jazz fans. This shared background became the foundation of their creative relationship. While other students, including Chevy Chase, briefly played music with them in informal campus settings, Steely Dan was always conceived as a partnership between Fagen and Becker rather than a traditional band.
In the late nineteen sixties, Fagen and Becker found themselves broke and looking for opportunities as songwriters. They took their material to the Brill Building in New York, a place long associated with professional songwriting and music publishing. On a quiet summer day in nineteen sixty eight, when most industry figures were away attending a conference, they encountered members of Jay and the Americans, who maintained a publishing office in the building. This meeting proved decisive.
Through that connection, Fagen and Becker spent several years working as touring musicians, playing piano and bass respectively. The experience exposed them to the realities of the music business and sharpened their sense of what they did and did not want to be as artists. Fagen admitted candidly that they were not particularly good pop songwriters at the time and often attempted to imitate what was already on the radio.
During this period, they maintained two notebooks of songs. One contained straightforward material intended for commercial use. The other, which they referred to as their more serious work, held songs meant to be performed by a band. This second collection would eventually define Steely Dan’s direction. When they later secured a songwriting deal with ABC Records, they initially presented the more accessible material before gradually introducing their more complex compositions.
As Steely Dan began recording, the music was intentionally kept simple. Early songs avoided overly complex harmony to avoid alienating listeners. Over time, however, Fagen and Becker began to reintroduce the jazz influenced ideas that came naturally to them. This gradual shift shaped the sound that would later define the band.
Fagen’s reflections underline that Steely Dan was not the result of sudden inspiration but of patience, restraint, and shared musical values. The band’s sophisticated sound emerged slowly, guided by instinct rather than ambition, and rooted firmly in the partnership formed years earlier in a college setting.