Things I miss the most

Steely Dan

 I don't mind the quiet
 Or the lonely nights
 I don't miss the funky attitudes
 And I don't miss the fights
 I lie on the couch till suppertime
 And hunker down and read the Post
 And that's when I remember the things I miss the most:

 The talk
 The sex
 Somebody to trust
 The Audi TT
 The house on the Vineyard
 The house on the gulf coast
 These are the things I miss the most

 I kinda like frying up
 My sad cuisine
 Gettin' in bed and curling up with a girlie magazine
 But sometimes in the corner of my eye
 I see that adorable ghost
 And then ba-boom I remember the things I miss the most

 The talk
 The sex
 Somebody to trust
 The comfy Eames chair
 The good copper pans
 The '54 Strat
 These are the things I miss the most

 I had a little birdy friend
 By morning she was gone
 Birdy good-bye
 Birdy bye-bye

 I'm learning how to meditate
 So far so good
 I'm building the Andrea Doria out of balsa wood
 The days really don't last forever
 But it's getting pretty damn close
 And that's when I remember the things I miss the most:

 The talk
 The sex
 Somebody to trust
 The Audi TT
 The house on the Vineyard
 The house on the gulf coast
 These are the things I miss the most.

Commentary

The minstrels poem on September 16th (“Things I Didn’t Know I Loved”) reminded me of this Steely Dan song from their new album (“Everything Must Go”). I was a little unsure about sending in the lyrics of a Steely Dan song. But then, I found two other songs by Steely Dan - “Charlie Freak” (Poem #921) and “Chain Lighting” (Poem #965) on Minstrels.

Steely Dan’s songs more often than not are misty stories of scheming husbands (“Gaslighting Abbie”), divorcees (“Things I miss the most”), stalkers (“Lunch with Gina”) and voyeurs (“Cousin Dupree”). The lyrics unapologetically twine the banal and the personal to create cheerless imagery and are replete with dark humour, cryptic innuendo, verbal sophism and even cheap wisecracks. The duo (Donald Fagen and Walter Becker) of Steely Dan are themselves the epitome of unflappable cool, the wisecracking losers who in spite of their affected stance endear themselves to their fans because of the genuine lack of artifice in their works.

Every new Steely Dan song is clinically dissected and examined by their devoted minions at http://www.feverdreams.net

— Prashanth


The Wondering Minstrels, poem #1353 · 19 September 2003

Guest poem submitted by Prashanth Pappu

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