to me its about white girls dancing to reggae. babylon is like, the society built by white people, (as defined by rastafarianism) so sisters of babylon would be women of white society. jungle music is reggae. theres more but not for me to type at 1;47

just listened to this song and i absolutely love it!

Story takes place in L.A. and is about juggling multiple women at the same time. Sounds killer in headphones, especially when each girl sings "Tell me I'm the only one" out of different speakers.

Oh brother...what a horrible thing to think you aren't the only one.

But how blessed is it to find out you are.

I always thought this was one of their odes to slimy clubdom...mainly strip clubs.

"Well I should know by now that it's just a spasm...like a Sunday in TJ, that it's cheap but it's not free, that I'm not what I used to be, and that love's not a game for free."

Always saw the "Babylon Sisters" as strippers and the protagonist's life as very empty due to his penchant for cheap thrills he can buy.

But any Major Danfan knows that "you pay today or pay tomorrow."

The protagonist is invited to a wild beach party with a change to get 'involved' with two young girls - 'babylon sisters'. Babylon because they will all 'sin' together. They party, have an indulgent time, but it all becomes very complicated quickly, as it always does when more than 2 people become involved romantically (for young women, sex usually leads to romance).
He quickly realizes he can't keep up ("I'm not what I used to be, and love's not a game for three"). His friends warned him, that it's just like a Sunday in Tijuana - cheap but not free. The effects can have grave implications. In Tijuana you can get arrested for the drugs/girls that draw you there. Relationships with 2 women can destroy your personal life.
It could be that he simply cheated with a younger woman at the party, and the guilt and shame is destroying his main relationship. i.e. when his woman asks him to 'tell him she's the only one', he can't control the guilt.
I've been in both situations, and the song applies to either pretty seemlessly.

Funkily fab!!

Here's my take:

He has hired a couple of hookers from LA, and he is taking them to San Francisco for a night (or weekend) of fun. But he wants to kid himself into thinking they aren't being paid to be there, but that they actually like him ("this is no one night stand, it's a real occasion," and "tell me I'm the only one").

He is perhaps an older man seeking to feel younger by having sex with two women, but all it does is make him feel older. He's "not what he used to be" and he's "playing with fire."

He wants to make more out of this outing than there really is, but in the end, he knows it's just like a cheap day trip to Tijuana to find a hooker there. There is no real attachment to these women--it's just sex ("just a spasm").

Yet he repeats the chorus, urging these "fine young" girls to "shake it" for him and assure him that "he's the only one."

^^^

Whoops! I had a serious "duh" moment after I posted the above.

He's not taking them to San Fran--he's taking them to his home in Malibu ("Drive west on Sunset to the sea"). Sunset Boulevard takes you right to Malibu. An aging celebrity, perhaps? He promises them the opportunity to "jog with show folks," who are in no short supply in Malibu, of course. Perhaps the warning from his friends in the final stanza of the song is because they fear that he might ruin his reputation if he is caught with prostitutes?

If I am not mistaken, the Santa Ana winds are fabled to make people a little crazy when they come blowing through. He describes the winds as being "bad news," as though he is prone to doing crazy things when the winds come.

"Babylon" could refer to the Whore of Babylon, suggesting again that they are hookers.

"Cotton candy" was a new term for me. Apparently, it's a heroin reference - http://www.undergroundeconomics.com/definition.php?search=by - but of course, you all probably knew that already....

A song about an older man's younger lover. Possibly a teenager. 'So fine, so young'. 'Turn that jungle music down'

I think its about the glamour business. A guys picking the girls out (tell me I'm the only one), falls in love with one and things go awry (son you're playing with fire). I don't know. I don't think they'll divulge the secrets to us. The Bernard Purdie shuffle does it for me. So precise and faultless and playing this song on a sunny afternoon (preferably in a luxury house in LA) is just amazing.

Ok here is my take... middle age married guy hooks himself a new younger girl... she is his "in" into a different lifestyle. Jungle music is likely just the music from her generation. My grandparents thought jazz was jungle music, my parents rock n roll etc. She maybe a singer or actress who has made it...He has always wanted to be at some party in/at the "Distant lights from across the bay". Now he is thanks to her. Therefor a Babylon Sister is a direct reference to our single character in the plural, young girls who are like the fall of Babylon. She is the person that will be his demise. He knows love is not a game for three. Her, him and the wife! Santa Ana winds do make people do strange things...

We'll jog with show folk on the sand
Drink kirschwasser from a shell
San Francisco Show and Tell

Again he is now with the "in" younger crowd...

Well I should know by now that it's just a spasm

A spasm is something you do one a whim
Like a Sunday in T.J.

Like on a bender in Tiajana

That it's cheap but it's not free

Its cheap but you still have to pay

That I'm not what I used to be

I am having a mid-life crisis and need this girl to make me feel young and get me in with a younger crowd

And that love's not a game for three

I am still married... the wife is somewhere

My friends say no don't go for that cotton candy
Son you're playing with fire
The kid will live and learn
As he watches his bridges burn
From the point of no return

Cotton Candy is just a young and sweet thing... I am out of my mind and there will be no way back to my boring, but at least safe existence with my wife...

I know what a babylon sister is... a need in my mind to remain young in my mind!

Favorite Steely Dan song all time... I sing it everyday of my life, at work, on the train...hey you gotta skake it baby, you gotta shake it

A married man indulges his midlife crisis with a much younger woman who truly believes he is in love with her. Against his better judgment and the advice of friends he continues down a self destructive path of hedonism in which he will lose both women.

I believe the Babylon Sisters are Los Angeles and SanFrancisco. A couple of sin cities. But who really knows whats in the convoluted mind of Donald Fagan???

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I'm with panzer4963; it's about a man's mid life crisis.

Too old to enjoy "that jungle music" (rock). The fella's found some young fluff and he's heading out of town to recapture his lost youth - just a spasm, force of habit. He knows it means nothing but he's intent on fooling himself.

His friends think he's an idiot for going for that "cotton candy" (i.e. fairy floss - sweet, insubstantial and lacking in nutrition). Still, he's about to screw up the life he built for good with this impulsive escapade. "It's cheap but it's not free".

Such a brilliant, poignant lyric. It's one of my favourites ever.

Babylon Sisters is a Biblical reference to a fallen people, fallen women, fallen and degenerate lifestlyles, he realizes he is getting to old for this shallow experiences. He is with his young girl on the Santa Ana Freeway on his way to a threeway sexual encounter. ("Its cheap but its not free...Love is not a game for three, San Fransico Show and Tell is another sex rerefence) Cotton candy = nose candy (cocaine and or young girl reference)."So Fine So Young Tell me I'm the only One" a delusional refrence about relationships with prostitutes..These women are so young he no longer has much in common with them ("Turn that jungle music down").
Babylon Sister Shake It... its no secret about indulgent rock lifesytles, he has talked about his indulgent destructive behavior before (In Kid Charlamagne, also in Time Out Of Mind phrase "Tonight When I Chase The Dragon ,are all drug refernces) he has mentioned his prefrence for fast women (prostitutes) in his songs before. There is also some sadness, remorse, guilt?... as he realizes he is geting to old for this shallow experiences....but it has never stopped him before as in the Song Do It Again that is about addictions compulsions and repeating his mistakes again and again. So Babylon Sister Shake It....."you got to shake it baby you got to shake it baby you got to shake it"...........

Boy, do I hate to be the one to break this to you all, and I'm not even gay! Babylon Sister is a young gay boy for hire, degenerate, as Joeo explains. They do a great job with the lyrics, the references are there, if you know them, but you can be in denial until that one little word that gives it away: "My friends say no don't go for that cotton candy - Son you're playing with fire - The kid will live and learn - As HE watches HIS bridges burn..." Trust me, they knew what they were doing. Check out "Gaucho".

I tend to look to the autobiographical in Dan songs. So perhaps this is rock star protagonist with two groupie females promising all kinds of good things to them, with bad things happening because he's too old for this.

Although, I do wonder what "San Francisco show and tell" is, given that SF is known for homosexuality...

Babylon Sisters is about at least one Caucasian guy taking another across town to sample sex for the first time with African-American women. Reasons:

"Drive west down Sunset to the sea" disguises the song's locale, switching it from San Francisco to LA. Oakland is west of San Francisco and has a higher black population than San Francisco 'proper'. Oakland however is on the sea.

"Turn that jungle music down, at least until we're out of town" is the voice of the soon-to-be-initiated white gentleman, anxious and uncomfortable, possibly scared, to his more experienced friend who is listening to black music in the car as they drive to the scene of the initiation.

"It's everything they say" is one of the biggest giveaways this song is about sex with black women: white America is notorious for the statement "once you go black, you never go black", and white men in many seldom publicly known myths about black women being oversexed and insatiable.

"The end of a perfect day" is somewhat a cocaine reference, but "lights across the bay" again locates the song in Oakland, the black area of San Francisco, located across the bay from San Fran.

"Babylon Sisters" is a double-reference ID-ing black females as the subject of the song. Jamaican Rasta culture calls America "Babylon", and "sisters" is the best-known black female self-appelative. Black women refer to one another as "sister", white people call black women "sistas". "Shake it" is a porn reference suggesting the woman on top, bouncing so that her breasts bounce up and down above the man. "So fine, so young, tell me I'm the only one" describes the women in the first half, and the man having sex with them in the second: "Tell me I'm the only white guy you've ever had." As a black woman who has had white boyfriends I cannot TELL you how many times I've been told this one.

"Here come those Santa Ana winds again" is a Los Angeles localism: when the Santa Anas blow, all bets are off, people go crazy, and you are expected to do things against the norm: i.e. sleep with a black while white. It's like Sadie Hawkins day. They are also considered unlucky.

"Cotton candy" is a pretty blunt reference to the women's hair texture (two guesses where and either is correct), and when Donald Fagen says "my friends don't go for that cotton candy" he is talking about his other white male friends who would never consort with black women. It's also an oblique reference to "Brown Sugar" by The Rolling Stones, whose Mick Jagger refers to sex with black women as "sweet". Ergo, "candy = sugar".

All the lines after cotton candy are Steely Dan's clever nods to white fear and neurosis after the act is compeleted, i.e., "Will this come back to haunt me?" "Does this mean I'm into this skin color forever?" "Am I tainted by this experience?" et cetera. All in all a perfect song that sums it all up succinctly, accurately and perfectly.

Source: a friend of mine played for Steely Dan and his son plays for them now.

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