Reeling in the Years

Some of my earliest musical memories involve being in the car – do everyone’s? It seems logical, so maybe it’s not just me.

If my mum was driving, my sister and I would be in the back singing along with the Bangles’ album A Different Light (on cassette).  If my dad was driving, it would be a Steely Dan greatest hits compilation called Reeling in the Years.  Bear in mind that their other in-car favourites of the time were Famous Blue Raincoat as sung by Jennifer Warnes, aka Jenny Sings Lenny (Mum) and Money for Nothing by Dire Straits (Dad) – and you can see that my musical tastes were largely formed in the back seat of various battered mid-range 80s hatchbacks.

I still have a great fondness for the Bangles.  I often get an urge to put on their cover of A Hazy Shade of Winter and sing along badly on a sunny Saturday morning.  I still believe that Manic Monday is one of the best pop songs of all time, and Walk Like An Egyptian is not far behind.

I still absolutely love Steely Dan.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.  We were so tiny when we used to listen to Steely Dan that my sister, practically still a baby, used to sing along earnestly to Deacon Blues with an unshakeable conviction that the lyric was, ‘They call me peekaboo’.

The first time my dad ever met my boyfriend (a guitarist) they listened to Steely Dan while my dad asked ‘could you play this?’ to every song, amazed that the answer was ’yes’.

I listen to a lot of Steely Dan these days.  My favourite songs are:

1.     My Old School

2.     Deacon Blues

3.     Do It Again

4.     Rikki Don’t Lose That Number

5.     Haitian Divorce

It’s probably no coincidence that they were all on that greatest hits compilation.