1976 Songs: Don’t Take Me Alive

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So you’ll tell me I’m late and I’ll tell you you’re correct! I got a rude reminder of why I don’t buy bigger bags of bird seed: it hurts my back when I pick them up. There’s a “zero gravity” setting on my adjustable bed, which will ease the pain along with the Tylenol and lidocaine. Meanwhile, let me inflict some pain on NJ Chic with her “favorite band” as we travel back 50 years. Don’t Take Me Alive - Steely Dan Sorry, NJ. It’s Steely Dan! This is from one of my favorite albums of theirs, the one that battles Can’t Buy a Thrill as my favorite. (Depends on the mood.) There weren’t any “big hits” from this album. “Kid Charlemagne” was a single but not a successful one. But it’s one terrific album, start to finish…complete with the reason the Eagles said “They stabbed it with their steely knives” in the song “Hotel California.” (One song on this album, “Everything You Did,” contains the line, “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening,” so the Eagles returned the favor of the mention.) With no real hit to pick, I chose this gritty tale of a police standoff to highlight the album. DANG, but the Larry Carlton guitar work in this song is amazing. Not to sound like Rebelann, but this song would be great without the lyrics. It’s not a happy song, for certain. “A bookkeeper’s son” decides he’s going to keep the cops at bay with guns and “a case of dynamite.” Much like other criminal songs of the era (Elton John’s masterpiece “Ticking” or Neil Young’s brilliant “Powderfinger”), we’re not sure of WHY, just what. All we know is that the anti-hero of this song “crossed my old man back in Oregon.” If that means he killed him or did some illegalities with his father’s accounting (or even if the “bookkeeper” in question worked for underworld figures), we’re never told. It’s all left to our imagination. And if you don’t want to think about what’s going on, there’s always Larry Carlton’s guitar work to paint a picture for you. Don’t Take Me Alive Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen Recorded by Steely Dan From The Royal Scam, 1976 The mechanized hum of another world: