Steely Dan's "Gaucho," song forensics by Dr. Wu

Hi all… this week in the writing biz I bit off a little more than I can chew and spit out in clearly written sentences, so I’m calling in a friend, Dr. Wu, who I know you will appreciate, and revel is his wise and Wu-ish words.

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Steely Dan’s “Gaucho,” song forensics

by Dr. Wu

Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table…

It’s fitting that my first forensic song report is a Steely Dan song, considering the coincidence of my given appellation and their song of the same name. Also, the fact that Steely Dan is a band that has always written cryptic lyrics which have left many listeners scratching their heads in bafflement.

Ahh, but not this listener, not Dr. Wu.

Steely Dan is known for their meticulous musical arrangements and performances by the sidemen playing the songs of Becker and Fagen. Likewise, though some listeners don’t comprehend Dan’s lyrics, they are in fact as meticulously crafted as the music.

It wouldn’t be logical for it to be otherwise.

“Gaucho” begins with the line –  

Just when I say ‘Boy we can’t miss, you are golden,’ then you do this.

The initial question here is, why the word ‘boy’? Wouldn’t ‘girl’ be the logical choice?

Of course, the coy misdirection of Becker and Fagen would have you believe the word ‘boy’ is an exclamation, rather than a noun. The Dr. says no. This word in fact signals the listener that the narrator is talking to a younger man.

Whoa, Wu! I can see where you’re going with this. You might say it’s a well-known fact that Becker and Fagan were always known as notoriously heterosexual males. True, enough, says the Dr. However, are they mass killers shooting from a tower, like the narrator in “Don’t Take Me Alive”? Are they jazz saxophonists living the hard life of a small time musician playing nightclubs, like the narrator in “Deacon Blues?” “Pearl of the Quarter” is a love song to a New Orleans streetwalker that has aspects of a short story. In other words, Steely Dan has often employed narrators who are fictional, not autobiographical, in order to tell a story. Besides, what’s the big stretch?

You say this guy is so cool, snapping his fingers like a fool, one more expensive kiss-off, who do you think I am?

Here we have the younger person (boy) enthralled with a young man, a hanger on who the narrator holds in contempt. If this younger person were a girl, it wouldn’t make sense to have her parading a boy around as a ‘friend,’ but in the gay world, it makes perfect sense.

Now the narrator begins speaking to the ‘special friend. The narration of the song goes back and forth between the narrator’s love interest and the “Gaucho” of the title.

Lord I know you’re a special friend, but you don't seem to understand
we got heavy rollers I think you should know, try again tomorrow

Here the narrator is getting rid of the Gaucho interloper. Whatever’s going on, there’s heavy rollers – the game is above the Gaucho’s pay grade, whether there’s actual betting or it’s metaphoric for the Custerdome scene, whatever that is.

Now the narrator switches and is talking to his young love interest once again –

Can't you see they're laughing at me, get rid of him, 
I don't care what you do at home, would you care to explain?
who is the gaucho amigo, why is he standing in your spangled leather poncho and your elevator shoes?
bodacious cowboys such as your friend will never be welcome here
high in the Custerdome

This is the crux of the story. The narrator asks his young love interest what the hell is this other boy doing there, and the line ‘who is the gaucho amigo’ ends any doubt that all the principles here are male. The cowboy is a standard gay male stereotype, and it’s being played upon here because the Gaucho friend might be, by inference, Hispanic in background. The spangled leather poncho, emphasis on the word poncho adds credence to this idea. Along with the elevator shoes, this is typical outlandish gay apparel of the time, 1980 when the record came out, at the end of the disco 70’s.

So what is the Custerdome? Well, Custer’s famous defeat certainly plays into the image of a place where the defeated go, but it’s a Custer-dome, so it has stature of a materialistic sort, it’s fancy, it’s nice, it’s big. Another thing, General George Custer was something of a dandy when it came to clothes and grooming, and there have long been rumors and speculation about his sexual orientation. The Custerdome, then becomes a place of serious wastrels in a gay male milieu, where the games might turn rough for the innocent or unprepared.

The next verses are more of the same, trying to get rid of the Gaucho, with the only bit of difference being the touch of tenderness the narrator displays for his love interest in the lines –

Who is the gaucho amigo why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho 
with the studs that match your eyes

It’s the first sign in the song of the narrator feeling anything resembling love.

So there it is, listeners – my expert forensic song analysis of Steely Dan’s “Gaucho.”

As always, that’s the way the Dr. sees it. You, of course, might see it differently – that’s your right – but you’d be wrong.

Till the next investigation,

Dr. Wu