A Coolly Executed Confession of Obsessive Love and Fanciful Escapism, Set to a Breathtakingly Jazzy, Mid-Life Groove.
By 2012, the world had come to expect a specific kind of exquisite drama from Donald Fagen. The co-founder of Steely Dan had, through his solo work, perfected a unique literary pop sensibility: complex characters, immaculate session musicianship, and a pervasive atmosphere of sophisticated melancholy. His fourth solo album, Sunken Condos, arrived late in his career as a testament to his undiminished, meticulous genius, and no track on it better captures the album’s blend of mature, jazzy polish and quirky, fictional obsession than “Planet d’Rhonda.”
Key Information: “Planet d’Rhonda” is a track from Donald Fagen’s 2012 album, Sunken Condos. The album, released by Reprise Records, was a critical darling and a significant commercial success for an artist in his sixties, peaking impressively at No. 12 on the US Billboard 200 chart and reaching No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart. “Planet d’Rhonda” was not released as a commercial single and therefore holds no chart position, existing instead as a crucial anchor for the album’s distinct sound and lyrical theme. The track is notable for featuring Fagen’s signature vocals and keyboard arrangements, supported by a cast of incredible session players who bring a subtle, driving groove to the complex harmonic structure.
The story behind “Planet d’Rhonda” is pure, delightful Fagen fiction. Much of Sunken Condos is populated by an eccentric cast of characters, and here, he introduces a new, elusive object of obsession: Rhonda. This isn’t a simple love song; it’s a detailed blueprint of the narrator’s entire internal world, which has been re-architected to orbit this one person. The song details the lengths—both physical and psychological—to which the narrator has gone to make contact, including visiting a medium and embarking on a bizarre, fantastical journey into the cosmos, just to find her. The title itself suggests a total, all-consuming focus: the woman has become a celestial body, the entire universe existing only on her terms.
The song’s meaning is a brilliantly constructed metaphor for the totalizing nature of obsessive, unrequited, or distant love, particularly as experienced in middle age. The drama is subtle, existing entirely in the gap between the narrator’s cool, almost academic presentation of his feelings and the utter chaos of his inner life. He talks about his efforts to find Rhonda as if booking a complex, intergalactic travel itinerary. He acknowledges the absurdity of his situation—the almost scientific devotion to tracking a single, elusive star—but the sophisticated, relentlessly swinging rhythm of the song refuses to let the sadness fully sink in.
For the older, well-informed listener, this track provides a magnificent wave of nostalgia for the Steely Dan era, while celebrating Fagen’s maturity. The song’s complex chord changes and the smooth, horn-like lines of the keyboards feel instantly familiar, yet the groove—a relaxed, almost hypnotic mid-tempo sway—speaks of an artist who no longer needs to prove anything. It’s the sound of a musician confident enough to let the rhythm breathe. “Planet d’Rhonda” is a dramatic, beautiful piece of evidence that the most compelling love stories are often the most fictional, a testament to the fact that even decades into a stellar career, Donald Fagen could still compose a miniature, three-minute, deeply felt musical play.