The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyric: How to unfold your love
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “'Til I satisfy my soul” is from the song "Black Friday” (last week was, you know…), by Steely Dan*, written by Walter Becker & Donald Fagen- the song is Track 1 on the album “Katy Lied” released in March 1975, “Black Friday” was released as a single in May of 1975 . Produced by Gary Katz.
Links: (Songfacts): Black Friday (Wikipedia): Katy Lied (album)
*(Yes, Gentle Reader, I know where the name comes from…Link)
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
From the SongFacts website, author uncredited: :
Long before the term came to denote the shopping frenzy on the day after Thanksgiving, Steely Dan released this song about the original "Black Friday," when on Friday, September 24, 1869 a failed ploy left many wealthy investors broke. The investors tried to corner the market on gold, buying as much of it as they could and driving up the price, but when the government found out, it released $4 million worth of gold into the market, driving down the price and clobbering the investors.
As for how it became a retail reference, sometime in the '60s, the term was bandied about to indicate the key day in the holiday shopping season when the stores would be "in the black," meaning making money (black ink indicates profit, red ink indicates loss).
While the song is about events in the US, it mentions a town in Australia: "Fly down to Muswellbrook."
Muswellbrook is a rural town two hours North of Sydney that is full of kangaroos (thus the line, "Nothing to do but feed all the kangaroos"). It's possible that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen selected the name of Muswellbrook from an atlas, mainly because it worked well with the next line, "I'm going to strike out all the big red words from my little black book." They also wanted a place far away from Los Angeles. >>
Steely Dan used various guitarists on the Katy Lied album, including Rick Derringer, Hugh McCracken and Larry Carlton. On this track, however, Walter Becker played the solo. He did it using the Fender Telecaster belonging to another guitarist who played on the album, Denny Dias. Becker used it because he liked how Dias had it set up.
This was the first of two singles released from the Katy Lied album ("Bad Sneakers," which reached #103 US was the second). Like many Steely Dan singles, it had just a modest placing on the US chart, reaching #37. This was of no concern to Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who weren't concerned about how their singles fared. And like every Steely Dan album released before they disbanded in 1981, Katy Lied reached Gold status.Ed. In 2006 I was at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, Washington (link) on July 27 pretty much enjoying Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
Some memorable moments: Steven Stills stopped the group about halfway through a song (can’t remember which one) apologizing for “screwing it up” and made them start over. That led to David Crosby’s wry comment: “It wasn’t me this time…” and to this day, I don’t know if that was real or just something they did sometimes...
The other one was a woman a few rows ahead of us who was unfortunately seated behind a very energetically dancing woman in a straw cowboy hat with beads and feathers. Apparently unable to see the band, the unfortunately seated woman yelled, “I didn’t pay 50 bucks just to look at your fat ass!!!” Security made an appearance, several of us laughed a lot, all was calmed and the show went on…
But the NEXT night, our seats were better, the crowd was great, Michael McDonald was fabulous and reports of their demise notwithstanding, Steely Dan was absolutely AMAZING - one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to (John Prine and Carlos Santana notwithstanding…). Memorable. Can’t find a setlist from that concert, but the previous night they had performed in Clark County, WA, and the setlist from that concert (probably the same) is here: July 27 Setlist
Ed. If you have a funny, heartwarming, cool story about a concert/performance you were at, make sure to leave a comment telling us about it below!
Some Stuff
The “biz”:
More Stuff:
A Song To Play…
Lyrics
(From Genius) Link><
[Verse 1] When Black Friday comes I'll stand down by the door And catch the grey men when they Dive from the fourteenth floor When Black Friday comes I'll collect everything I'm owed And before my friends find out I'll be on the road [Chorus] When Black Friday falls You know it's got to be Don't let it fall on me [Verse 2] When Black Friday comes I'll fly down to Muswellbrook Gonna strike all the big red words From my little black book Gonna do just what I please Gonna wear no socks and shoes With nothing to do but feed All the kangaroos [Chorus] When Black Friday comes I'll be on that hill You know I will [Instrumental Break] [Verse 3] When Black Friday comes I'm gonna dig myself a hole Gonna lay down in it 'Til I satisfy my soul Gonna let the world pass by me The Archbishop's gonna sanctify me And if he don't come across I'm gonna let it roll [Chorus] When Black Friday comes I'm gonna stake my claim I'll guess I'll change my name [Instrumental Outro]
Some Links For Today:
(If the link description sounds interesting , click on it.)
*From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
*From Songtown:
*From Disc Makers:
ED. None of these result in compensation to me in any way, and I’m not endorsing any of them, but some of my readers may find them as interesting as I did…
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: The “Remembered...” playlist…
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “>Long Road Back<”click on this link for streaming options, then scroll down for links (or just click on these links) to Amazon, Apple, Pandora, iTunes and even Spotify
If you’re enjoying our content, please let your friends and musician acquaintances know about us!!! Thanks for supporting this free newsletter!
Disclaimer Section
This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). *I do not use AI for any of the text that’s found here, things I link to (such as some images) might…
-Michael Acoustic
Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support this newsletter.
Thank You To Our New Subscribers and Followers!!
This Week’s Conversation With Mika, The Cat:
Ed. She seemed quite offended that I caught her sleeping in a non-tactical position…
…apparently cats must be prepared to engage in deadly combat the instant danger is sensed….that was her story anyway.
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
The musicianship and artistry of Steely Dan are unparalleled. RIP Walter Becker.
Another fun post, Michael. I'm trying to play catch-up, but it's probably more likely that I'll jump into the current and hopefully stay afloat. I didn't know the back-story to Black Friday, so that was cool! Was Michael McDonald opening for Steely Dan? Was he solo? And I've had the wild hippie dancer (usually more than one) in the seat/s in front of me before and that does indeed ruin it. I usually try and find a new seat, but often the free-spirited dancer is blocking the view of lots of people so saying something is often appreciated by the other poor saps with seats behind them.