Halloween Freak Out: Easy In To It ......
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"Charlie Freak" by Steely Dan has elements of noir film scripting.
The narrative, poetic and fluid. It's all sadness and redemption.
The music, it feels like night and wild clowns with a bit of dirge tossed in.
Enjoy this overlooked classic. Lyrics follow.
Charlie Freak - Steely Dan (Pretzel Logic)
Charlie Freak had but one thing to call his own
Three weight ounce pure golden ring no precious stone
Five nights without a bite No place to lay his head
And if nobody takes him in He'll soon be dead
On the street he spied my face I heard him hail
In our plot of frozen space he told his tale
Poor man, he showed his hand
So righteous was his need
And me so wise I bought his prize
For chicken feed
Newfound cash soon begs to smash a state of mind
Close inspection fast revealed his favorite kind
Poor kid, he overdid
Embraced the spreading haze And while he sighed his body died
In fifteen ways
When I heard I grabbed a cab to where he lay
'Round his arm the plastic tag read D.O.A.
Yes Jack, I gave it back
The ring I could not own
Now come my friend I'll take your hand
And lead you home
Comments (11)
Thanks for the reminder, my friend. Not overlooked, just buried - modern realism horror.
Scotty did you ever wonder about the correlation between song placement and bong hits? How many bong hits does it take for the album to become nothing more than background noise?
I think this tune deserves more study.
Dude it's totally overlooked.
I got it a the tenth track. That's to many bong hits and beers to make it memorable.
For gods sake this tune is lucky to survive an anthology.
Hell, I would bet you would find another record before this gem was played.
Tell me I am not right on.
You got it. I can't say if I grokked the lyrics very well when this was new...wayyy too many bong hits. And as I did not own ...Logic, once the college crowd split ways, it was forgotten for many orbits.
Fortunately, the sublime "Citizen" box set collects all those studio gems, and doubly fortuitous I recieved it in a familt Christmas x-change.
So, thanks for taking it back for the audio contact buzz...
You got to post some of that set.
Any studio talk in there?
will do.
surprisingly, little banter...just a few unreleased tracks here and there...but then, I suppose you can't beat every studio track in the original playing sequence.
The set is pretty much the albums in order with a small smattering of live material..Noir-o-rama. Funnily, I never did bong hits in college..my mom smoked pot,how could it be cool? I caught up later, like I do with most things.
The closer of the set is this demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies", and now I'm going to bed.
What a nugget Scott. Thx for that.
Cody I think there is a serious research project just ripe for a thesis in there somewhere. I think funding is not out of the realm of possiblity. What would the data indicate? Oh ... and the perks of the research.
Bong hits. You must explain this concept to me. An interesting tune you post, Chris. You're right, it was overlooked, (by me anyway).....Thanks
I think they were smart, smart-alecks in that band. The song seems to be about heroin..they wrote what they knew.