My Old School (song)

"My Old School" is a single drawn from Steely Dan's 1973 album Countdown to Ecstasy. It reached number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100.[1]

"My Old School"
Single by Steely Dan
from the album Countdown to Ecstasy
B-side"Pearl of the Quarter"
ReleasedOctober 1973
GenreRock, pop rock, jazz fusion
Songwriter(s)Donald Fagen, Walter Becker
Producer(s)Gary Katz
Steely Dan singles chronology
"Show Biz Kids"
(1973)		 "My Old School"
(1973)		 "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"
(1974)
Music video
"My Old School" on YouTube

The song's lyrics tell the story of a May 1969 drug bust at Bard College, referred to in the lyrics by its location, Annandale. The incident happened while both Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were students there, and the song recounts how a female acquaintance betrayed them to "Daddy Gee" (G. Gordon Liddy), then the local prosecutor. According to a 2014 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, 44 people were arrested, including Fagen, whose long hair was cut off at the Poughkeepsie jail.[2] The upshot in the song is that the singer vows he is "never going back" to the college until "California tumbles into the sea".[3]

Cash Box described the song as a "departure from the group’s usual fare, but definitely a track that’s going to have programmers and listeners buzzing."[4]

Personnel

Key signature and composition

The song was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker[5] and is in the key of G major. The original studio track features a guitar solo by Jeff Baxter.

Legacy

Fagen reneged on his "never going back" promise. He returned to Bard College when he received an honorary Doctor of the Arts degree in 1985.[6]

References
  1. "Billboard Hot 100 - Week of December 1, 1973". Billboard. Retrieved June 16, 2022.
  2. Mervis, Scott (August 21, 2014). "Uncovering the mysteries of Steely Dan". The Detroit News. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
  3. Stewart Mason. "My Old School - Steely Dan - Song Info". AllMusic. Retrieved September 5, 2017. "My Old School" is the pair's most overt song about their alma mater, a sarcastically chipper-sounding remembrance of the time Becker and Fagen, along with several dozen other students, found themselves caught up in a trumped-up drug raid during an election cycle.
  4. "CashBox Record Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. October 13, 1973. p. 18. Retrieved 2021-12-11.
  5. "MusicNotes". 4 January 2011. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  6. "Donald Fagen & Walter Becker". Bard Makes Noise. Retrieved 2022-02-11.


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