Posted on 01/28/2023 11:27:55 AM PST by nickcarraway
“I still believe that love is all you need,” Paul McCartney continues to proclaim, “I don’t know a better message than that.” And yet John Lennon took that love-uber-alles ethos to such an extreme in the 1970s that even his old rose-tinted mate was retorting, “Too many people preaching practices.” So it’s no surprise that the sardonic duo in Steely Dan rolled their eyes when they heard the ‘Smart One’s’ prayer for peace with ‘Imagine’ and a string of pious talk show appearances in the early 1970s.
Steely Dan’s bold response to Lennon’s all-white evangelism signified that the prominent days of the ‘Fab Four’ were waning. They may well have reached such a lofty height that they were steadfast to transcend society forevermore like counterculture Christs, but the age of atheism was now dawning, so to speak. How could it not?
The problem that The Beatles faced was the same one that all religions must reckon with, at one point faith surely has to sort this shitshow out. Try as ‘Imagine’ might, Lennon’s attempt to set the world to rights didn’t do much. It was becoming clear that love would only get you so far, but you’re going to need a whole lot more. At least creeds have promised eternities to deal with that quandary, The Beatles did not—they had a break-up and questionable dualities.
In 1971, Lennon appeared on The Dick Cavett Show alongside Yoko Ono. In an army overshirt, he spoke of peace and love. Outside the Regis Hotel where it was filmed, things were falling apart in a rainy New York City. Between 1969 to 1974 the former bohemian utopia lost 500,000 manufacturing jobs. Subsequently, a million homes depended on welfare, rapes and burglaries tripled, drugs ran rampant, and murders hit a high of 1690 a year.
In a wider sense, the American war offensive in Vietnam intensified. Charles Manson’s sentencing relived the horrors in the headlines. The post-war income gains began to drift from the median in favour of the 95th percentile for the first time. Jim Morrison’s excesses caught up with him. And the children of the revolution were faced with reconciling the fact that loads of lovely songs had, in fact, failed to stop a string of assassinations and other atrocities.
It is, of course, easy cynicism to scoff at Lennon’s pledge for a pristine paradise of borderless dreams, but that’s an open goal that Steely Dan and millions of others were happy to score in. It was their considered opinion that even having your heart in the right place can be a folly if you’ve failed to read the room. While Lennon would argue that he was promoting hope and some much-needed spiritualism to act as a beacon in these dark times, Steely Dan opined that “only a fool would say that”.
Their 1972 track, ‘Only a Fool Would Say That’ was written in response to Lennon’s parade of peace. It looks at idealism through the practical eyes of folks on the street. “You do his nine to five,” they sing, “drag yourself home half alive, and there on the screen, a man with a dream.” And with that, you get a sense of how grating and vacuous they thought that Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ campaign had become.
However, importantly, it wasn’t just the man on the street who identified with this tone. It was the kids coming through wondering what their place in the world would be. You see, it’s a reality that we’re still getting nostalgic over and no doubt will do forevermore: the 1960s were a cultural zenith akin to the great renaissance period confined to about seven short years from Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963 to Woodstock in 1969. These might seem arbitrary, but that’s the legacy of culture—these things require an arc. Given that the height of the first renaissance was about 465 years earlier, it was dawning that it might take some time before things reach the frenzied heights of the Summer of Love again.
By the time Steely Dan began pointing their fingers at misplaced idealism in the fallout from that prelapsarian slide of flowery dreams to the nitty-gritty side of realism, a new cultural outlook was seeding. The kids searching for their own identity out in this grim new dystopia and a sort of cynical academic approach seemed like the answer. Their parents had come of age in the days of ‘White Rabbit’ but now they were spending their old hashish money on white goods, accepting the fruits of capitalism and the home comforts of commerciality.
This was asserted by one of the flower power eras’ most beloved stars no less. “You watched that high of the hippie thing descend into drug depression,” she said. “Right after Woodstock, then we went through a decade of basic apathy where my generation sucked its thumb and then just decided to be greedy and pornographic.” Once more, it must be said that this is awful harsh and cynical, but that was the angle being drummed up and it was an easy tune to march to.
It was as though the 1960s had been hoisted by their own petard, faced with the turn-coat tag of converting to reality or the oblivion of endless idealism. Lennon chose the latter, but sadly he didn’t give up quite enough possessions or clean up his pitfalls enough to be canonised a saint, and this made him a target for the likes of Steely Dan and Frank Zappa who criticised his preaching. Their comical satire was more akin to the disdainful ways of Kurt Vonnegut than any conventional philosophers. The didactic ways of Lennon were often the punchline to their acerbic idealism-defying opinions.
Wow, never knew this about My Favorite Band.
John Lennon was a jerk and I never liked him.
I don’t watch a lot of wrestling.
Was this a good bout?
Thing about Steely Dan, they sucked.
As musicians? As live performers?
As boring music.
The hippie fashion aesthetic was yucky, but that was ubiquitous then.
Then there’s Steely Dan’s “What a Beautiful World” tune.
I’ve never heard that it was done ironically.
can this possibly be translated to english?
“Steely Dan’s bold response to Lennon’s all-white evangelism...”
He did all that with Yoko Ono.
?
I never liked Steely Dan in the first place so I guess that’s why I had never heard about this.
Steely Dan… good band. The Beatles… quite a bit better.
can this possibly be translated to english?
Goo Goo Ga Joob!
I’m a Lennon, Dylan & Steely Dan fan. The writer or anyone else can fault Lennon for his foolish notions, but they can’t diminish his huge talent or the that of the Beatles as a whole.
“Their 1972 track, ‘Only a Fool Would Say That’ was written in response to Lennon’s parade of peace. It looks at idealism through the practical eyes of folks on the street.”
LOVE Steely Dan. I’d wish for THEIR music vs. Beatles if stranded on a desert island. ;)
Just get along, Kid Charlemagne.
They were different.
Steely Dan had some enjoyable good music... in a Yacht Rock kinda way. But please.... spare me serious social critique from those clowns.
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