A Haunted Toast to Longing — “Ida Lee” as Walter Becker’s Ghostly Ballad of Desire
Though “Ida Lee” was never issued as a single and did not chart in the usual commercial sense, it lives on as one of those rare, fragile gems in the catalog of Walter Becker, preserved within the 2007 compilation Found Studio Tracks. This collection is a trove of early session recordings Becker made with Donald Fagen long before Steely Dan became a household name.
In this forgotten-studio realm, “Ida Lee” stands like a midnight whisper — a smoky, languid vignette of longing, fantasy, and the intoxication of desire. Without the polish of later Steely Dan productions, the track’s rawness invites the listener into Becker’s private world, where emotion is rough-cut and unguarded.
The origin of “Ida Lee” lies in the pre-Steely Dan era: Becker and Fagen were writing songs and demoing ideas, working under the guidance of producer Gary Katz. According to Katz, these recordings were not intended for commercial release — they were embryonic, jagged sketches of songs, more personal experiments than finished statements. For Katz, it was clear: “They were just two guys writing songs — there was no Steely Dan.”
That context deeply colors how one hears “Ida Lee.” There’s a sense of intimacy, of working through emotional undercurrents without concern for radio-friendliness or marketability. The lyric paints a scene: a party for the titular Ida Lee, full of laughter, erotic tension, and a kind of wilting, desperate affection:
“Everybody’s laughin’, / Everybody’s makin’ love / Ida Lee, it’s you I’m thinkin’ of.”
Yet Ida Lee remains elusive, nowhere to be found in the very party held in her honor. She arrives in a swirl of whispered question — “Honey, where have you been?” — stirring the narrator’s raw nerves: “I’m stripping my gears, I’m blowing my fuse.” It’s a confession of surrender: she gives him “somewhat more than I can use,” suggesting that his desire — and perhaps his imagination — has outpaced any reasonable bounds.
Musically, the demo’s simplicity amplifies this vulnerability. Without the precise studio sheen of later Steely Dan work, the voice and instruments seem exposed — as if Becker is performing directly for us, alone in an empty room lit only by memory. This vulnerability is not weakness but strength: it lays bare a young songwriter grappling with unrequited longing, fantasy, and the heady intoxication that comes with imagining a love that may never fully materialize.
In the larger tapestry of Becker’s life, “Ida Lee” feels like a ghost — not just of a woman, but of a time. A time before mega-studio sessions, polished production, and the commercial weight of Steely Dan. It’s a snapshot of raw creativity, of late nights and experiments, of a songwriter pushing at the edges of longing.
Though “Ida Lee” remained hidden for decades, only resurfacing in the Found Studio Tracks compilation, its emotional resonance endures. It is a song not of triumph, but of yearning — and in that yearning, we feel something timeless: the ache of wanting someone who may never quite belong, even in the warmest room.