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I would love to tour the Southland
In a traveling minstrel show
Yes I'd love to tour the Southland
In a traveling minstrel show
Yes I'm dying to be a star and make them laugh
Sound just like a record on the phonograph
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
I have never met Napoleon
But I plan to find the time
I have never met Napoleon
But I plan to find the time
'Cause he looks so fine upon that hill
They tell me he was lonely, he's lonely still
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
I stepped up on the platform
The man gave me the news
He said, You must be joking son
Where did you get those shoes?
Where did you get those shoes?
Well, I've seen 'em on the TV, the movie show
They say the times are changing but I just don't know
These things are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
In a traveling minstrel show
Yes I'd love to tour the Southland
In a traveling minstrel show
Yes I'm dying to be a star and make them laugh
Sound just like a record on the phonograph
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
I have never met Napoleon
But I plan to find the time
I have never met Napoleon
But I plan to find the time
'Cause he looks so fine upon that hill
They tell me he was lonely, he's lonely still
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
I stepped up on the platform
The man gave me the news
He said, You must be joking son
Where did you get those shoes?
Where did you get those shoes?
Well, I've seen 'em on the TV, the movie show
They say the times are changing but I just don't know
These things are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
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This is a song about the ego dying..the part of you that gives a shit about inconsequential things...that adolescent kid grows up....The Dan are cool...cuz they went through these deaths and are out on the other side...grown ups playing grown up music
The song is about a type of hypocrisy that most of us engage in sometimes, as in, "I'm not a racist,
but I'd love to tour ... in a traveling minstrel show." Or: "I know he caused a lot of suffering,
but I'd love to meet Napolean," etc.
The song refers to changing times, just as we comfort ourselves by saying "lots of progress has been
made." Then, the tail-end irony: the singer stepped up on the platform (perhaps a platform for a
"time-train") and is told "you must be joking son." Now he's been has been "profiled" as not good enough for the time-trip (or whatever he was planning on). The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Logic, like time, is linear; hypocrisy twists it into "pretzel logic."
(Genesis 41:15-16)
But I plan to find the time." is meant to be funny since minstrel shows capitalized on the supposed ignorance of blacks. The narrator laments that his opportunity to be a "star" is gone since minstrel shows are no longer socially acceptable "They say the times are changing but I just don't know, These things are gone forever, Over a long time ago, oh yeah"
Doesn't anyone remember the ridiculous 70's platform shoes?
Of course they were making fun of the scene that they themselves were part of.
They always had a way of being too hip for what they were doing.
The only person that looked good in them was Fee Waybill doing "White Punkson Dope". I had the very good fortune to see them in Eugene, OR, in a venue that had all the ambiance of a bunker or the one for The Johnny Canalas show, "OK! You got it!" God, I miss that show.
The only person that looked good in them was Fee Waybill doing "White Punkson Dope". I had the very good fortune to see them in Eugene, OR, in a venue that had all the ambiance of a bunker or the one for The Johnny Canalas show, "OK! You got it!" God, I miss that show.
That is one of the funniest things I've ever read, I guess especially if Fagen said it. My vote would go to "Aja".
Fagen also said that one of their songs contains a secret narration of one of Ronald Reagan's surgeries, from the point of view of one of the polyps.
"I stepped up on the platform
The man gave me the news
He said, You must be joking Son
Where did you get those shoes?"
Hitler leaps onto a beer hall table and fires a gun at the ceiling. He is arrested, thrown in jail, writes Mein Kamph.
to the abandonment of touring after the Pretzel Logic album. In addition to this, the booking of Steely Dan at this time was ridiculous. There would be shows in which The Dan would be booked with the likes of Black Oak Arkansas...and of course they would get blown off the stage. All of these factors, coupled with the factors of which we do not know, had to raise some self-doubts within Steely Dan. Perhaps there were nights when they would question weather or not they should adbandon their jazz style in favor the more straight forward hard rock style
of music occurring at the time