[jdsteel]

Then there’s Steely Dan’s “What a Beautiful World” tune.

I’ve never heard that it was done ironically.

[Subcutaneous Fishstick Blues]

Then there’s Steely Dan’s “What a Beautiful World” tune.

I assume you mean I.G.Y. from Donald Fagen's solo album, The Nightfly.

I’ve never heard that it was done ironically.

Were you waiting for someone to tell you?

Okay, maybe it's not irony. But I always assumed that in the context of the concept of that album, which was apparently about him growing up in the late 50s/early 60s listening to late night jazz radio, it was about youthful exuberance and optimism, before he became a hardcore cynic.

There's also a track on there called The New Frontier, also done unironically, based on a saying of JFK's. And we all know what happened to JFK.

So it could be nostalgia for the time before he turned cynical, channeling the thoughts and feelings of his younger self, in which case you would technically be right.