Jack of Speed

It takes one to know one

“You maybe get lucky for a few good years
But there's no way back from there to here
He's a one way rider
On the shriek express
And his new best friend is at the throttle more or less”

You can’t write great songs about this stuff unless you’ve lived it. What does that say about our lyrical poets Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (RIP)?

Frankly it annoyed me when everyone “found” my band. It happened when Aja was released in 1977. It was their 6th album in as many years, and I knew every word to every song of the first 5 albums. I saw them on their first live tour at the Ambassador Theater in St. Louis on November 23, 1972 at the ripe age of 14. My friend’s parents had to drive us to the show. Here’s a straight-up, blinding glimpse of the obvious God-shot for you: My sobriety date is November 23. Whoa.

Anarchists, subversives, harsh task masters, persnickety perfectionists, and geniuses are all fitting descriptions of the duo named Steely Dan—named for a steam-powered sex toy in William Burroughs “Naked Lunch.”

Burroughs was a guy quite familiar with the routines of addiction. In fact, Naked Lunch, published in 1959, was less a book and more a series of vignettes that Burroughs himself titled as “routines.” In the stories we follow junkie William Lee around the world witnessing his obscene, often brutal, drug-laced adventures. Burrough’s writing clearly seeks to offend and disgust in Naked Lunch.

With Burroughs as an early writing influence during their days at Bard College, there’s no doubt that drugs influenced the writing of Fagen and Becker—likely their chaotic and cynical worldview as well. Cocaine was a legendary part of their great studio album Gaucho according to the many all-star studio musicians who partook. Walter Becker went through such a dark period of addiction during and after that album that he essentially retired from the band to Hawaii for a few years to clean up—only reuniting with Fagen after he was clean, and the latter had put out his own solo albums.

I’ve written previously about how Steely Dan could—and others have as well—make addiction seem wildly sexy and romantic. In my essay “The Romance of Addiction” about the classic Aja single “Deacon Blues,” there’s an aspirational quality of the idea of suicide by DUI.

But back to Jack. Jack of Speed was a single on the album Two Against Nature in 2000, their first album back together again, which won 4 Grammys, including the “Best Album of the Year.” In typical Steely Dan method, 28 different studio musicians contributed on the album alongside Fagen and Becker. As a true Dan aficionado, it’s not my favorite, but like all Dan devotees, this Dude can abide.

In the catchy single, they describe the day-to-day adventures of a meth addict on a downhill slide from normalcy to the eventual relationship and life ruin at the inevitable end of “skating backwards at the speed of light…”

Author David Sedaris, in his book “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” chronicles his own downward journey with ‘crank, ice, speed, tweak, crystal’…methamphetamine.

“After a few months in my parents’ basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination, they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.”

It is almost impossible to understand what someone is thinking while they are under the influence of methamphetamine. Because it’s a stimulant, more and more of it overloads the brain with stimulation; characterized by an intense, obsessive focus on multiple, seemingly random, activities and things.

If obsessive and compulsive and being singularly focused on one thing is a symptom of meth addiction, then what does that say about the brains of most artists—or most successful entrepreneurs for that matter? Doesn’t that describe many teenagers—or adults on social media as well?

There is a difference. A singularity of focus on a business or an artistic creation is part of a process of building something—of creating something. They/we could very well get OC about the mission, task, purpose. They/we could very well get neglectful of families and friends. They/we could be capable of prodigious and genius output. Dysfunctional to be sure, but not an addict.

With addiction to a stimulant like meth, the only “building” that is happening is a building of tolerance. With a dependence on any drug or substance, once a person begins to use it regularly, they’re Chasing the Dragon—another addiction phrase-turned-lyric put to amazing music in the Dan’s Gaucho release Time Out of Mind. This incredible song with the soaring backup lyrics by Michael McDonald, describes the high and wild lifestyle of affluent heroin users.

“Children we have it right here
It's the light in my eyes
It's perfection and grace
It's the smile on my face”

That original euphoria and ‘time out of mind’ originally produced by the drug requires more and more of the substance, and more creative and direct ways to ingest it. Smoking becomes snorting becomes shooting. Progression is the nature of addiction.

At that point, there is nothing being built. There are only things being torn down—families, careers, relationships, futures.

Meth is singularly destructive because of the immediate and obvious physical effects on the body with increased usage. The addict sees this change, ignores or denies it, can think of nothing but more tweak, the self-loathing and shame overwhelms, and the walls close in.

“He's gone - he walks through the old routines
But he's gone - guaranteed.
He may be sittin' in the kitchen, but he's
steppin' out with the Jack of Speed”

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote extensively about mental health, the addictions and ills of mankind, and the self-destructive tendencies of a society. Their masterful blend of jazz, soul, R&B, rock, and pop music stylings made them stars. Their attention to production detail made them industry legends. But for me it was always their writing that appealed. It was the original hook. Underneath the get-up-and-dance beat of songs like My Old School and Show Biz Kids, and Aja and Hey Nineteen, what I heard was,

“I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me
I only know I must obey
This feeling I can't explain away”

what I heard was discomfort. What I heard was a yearning. What I heard was what anyone who has ever struggled with addiction in their lives has felt. How could Fagen and Becker write about that feeling so purely without ever having been there and done that? The answer is they couldn’t have.

Before I ever realized or knew I had any addictive tendencies, I knew I loved Steely Dan.

I love this review by James Porteus in Pitchfork from 2021 when he reviews my single favorite Steely Dan album “Katy Lied.”

“The songs Becker and Fagen came up with are the usual mix of the funny, cynical, and cryptic, but here and there are moments of what seems to be actual sweetness. The brilliance of their songwriting is that they always aimed for complexity and never allowed themselves to be pinned down.”

And more, “Steely Dan made songs about the destructive force of male vanity that came from two people you knew were speaking from personal experience. They never hold themselves above their characters, but they don’t let them off the hook, either. On “Bad Sneakers,” we see a man bopping around the street near Radio City Music Hall like he owns the place. We feel what he feels but also see how ridiculous he looks, while Michael McDonald’s background vocals suggest grace in his awkwardness, celebrating the energy that powers him even though his actions are laughable.”

I’ve never been Teddy—skating backwards with his buddy Jack of Speed. But I get it. I’ve certainly been that man bopping around like he owns the place, while looking ridiculous to those around me. I get Fagen and Becker. And I get addiction. And I got recovery. And I still have it.

Walter Becker couldn’t escape cancer, but from all reports he did find recovery from drugs. Donald Fagen has always been more private and mysterious about his life off the stage. But they surely know of what they write.

Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend.