Originally published at: The fool in Steely Dan's "Only a Fool Would Say That" is John Lennon | Boing Boing
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Yeah well, they may say he was a dreamer, but he wasn’t the only one.
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Yeah, that makes sense. I listen to that album a lot and that song always felt like it was calling out pie in the sky idealism
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I imagine, as it were, that Lennon would reply that it is the fool’s job to speak the truth that others don’t dare to the king.
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They’re both right.
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On the other way, if your idealist fantasy is about some kind of god …
but did Lennon do their dirty work?
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Funny, that’s precisely how I’d describe Steely Dan.
“He that has and a little tiny wit,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.”
– William Shakespeare
The Fool to King Lear
Act 3, Scene 2
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Fools have the finest fits!
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But they are on the hill trying to recreate what has yet to be created, so it’s a wash.
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Hmm, I was going to ask Rikki, but I lost her number.
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Yet another reason not to like Steely Dan. 
I get it, it’s hard to be idealistic when you’re struggling, but if talking about peace and love is pie-in-the-sky idealism, then what of Jesus?
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I like Steely Dan’s music, but I don’t understand why their lyrics are admired. Maybe ‘sarcastic killjoy asshole’ was a a novel pose in 1980 but I lived through the 90’s and no longer think ‘detached irony’ is an adequate substitute for a personality.
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Well then maybe you should just drink your big Black Cow and get outta here. 
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Walter Becker was a right-wing nutjob DOD consultant for years. Not surprising he thought war was the answer to everything.
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yeah but just as one cohort ages out the next crew of assholes shows up to practice this one cool trick to seem sophisticated.
I guess it’s a genre.
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They wouldn’t even know a diamond if they held it in their hands.
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I had to look that up and I think you are mixing him up with Jeff Baxter:
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Well, I guess that explains the “Skunk” thing.
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