Tag Archives: Steely Dan

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Song of the Day #6,423: ‘Dirty Work’ – Steely Dan


Continuing a look at my favorite movie music scenes of 2025…

Paul Thomas Anderson has always had a gift for the perfect needle drop, whether it’s the wall-to-wall 70s and 80s pop hits of Boogie Nights, Shelly Duvall’s plaintive ‘He Needs Me’ in Punch-Drunk Love, or Neil Young’s gorgeous ‘Journey Through the Past’ in Inherent Vice.

He does it again a few times in One Battle After Another but the one that sticks with me the most comes after the film’s extended prologue when we jump ahead 16 years.

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Song of the Day #4,129: ‘My Old School’ – Steely Dan

I’ve never been a fan of Steely Dan. I enjoy a lot of artists and genres that are Steely Dan-adjacent (I’m even into Donald Fagen’s solo work) but for some reason the band itself has always left me cold.

In fact, Steely Dan leaves me so cold that this is — astoundingly — the first ever song of theirs I’ve featured on the blog. Eleven years and more than 4,100 posts without a single ‘Hey Nineteen,’ ‘Deacon Blues’ or ‘Do It Again.’ That’s dedication to not giving a damn about Steely Dan!

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