The Big Apple Songs: The Royal Scam

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Onward we go through the boroughs of New York City. By now you’re wondering what’s in the top ten, given that two of my longtime favorite acts have shown up outside of the top ten! Don’t worry, plenty of favorites in the top ten, so sit back and relax and enjoy today’s song. The Royal Scam - Steely Dan Well, that doesn’t apply to NJ Chic…she loathes this band. This song goes back 50 years, so you can’t say it’s a new thing. “The promised land where surely life was sweet” has been the lie people have believed for centuries. Granted, a lot of people had to flee things like the famine in Ireland or civil war in (insert just about any nation you’d like to name here). Like so many songs by Steely Dan, you can take this two ways. Given the title, I prefer to look at it as people who are living 20 to a one-bedroom apartment and making minimum wage trying to survive lying to everyone. That was in Bobby Bare’s hit “Detroit City”: “Home folks think I’m big in Detroit city, from the letters that I write they think I’m fine.” Yeah, the old BS routine: “don’t worry about me, I’m doing great.” There’s another way to look at it: a lot of the immigrants, especially in the bigger cities (New York, Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans), either turned to or got sucked into a life of crime. So the notion of someone “paid in gold just to babble in the back room all night and waste the time” could be a mobster as well as a liar. Given the implication of tension between the Puerto Ricans and the Blacks (“they learned to fear an angry race of fallen kings, their dark companions”), I’ve taken the criminal interpretation. Either way, the scam was, and still is, on. At any rate, you have some great guitar work from Larry Carlton on this song, just like he shone throughout the album. This argues with Can’t Buy a Thrill as my favorite Steely Dan album. The Royal Scam Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen Recorded by Steely Dan From The Royal Scam, 1976 NYC LYRICS: On the rising tide to New York City did they ride into the streets