Kid Charlemagne
| "Kid Charlemagne" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The cover of the "Kid Charlemagne" single features Fagen (top) and Becker (bottom) |
||||||||||
| Single by Steely Dan | ||||||||||
| from the album The Royal Scam | ||||||||||
| B-side | "Green Earrings" | |||||||||
| Released | May 1976 | |||||||||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||||||||
| Length | 4:38 | |||||||||
| Label | ABC Records | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Walter Becker, Donald Fagen | |||||||||
| Producer | Gary Katz | |||||||||
| Steely Dan singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"Kid Charlemagne" is a song by the rock group Steely Dan, which was released as a single from their 1976 album The Royal Scam. It is notable as a fusion of a funk rhythm and jazz harmonies with rock and roll instrumentals and lyrical style, as well as a very famous guitar solo by jazz-fusion guitarist Larry Carlton. The guitar solo was ranked #80 in the list of the 100 greatest guitar songs by Rolling Stone.[1]
[edit] Composition and legacy
Although the lyrics are, at first glance, typically oblique and allusive, writers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have stated that it was loosely inspired by the exploits of the infamous 1960s San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley[2] — although it conflates the core story with numerous other images of the Sixties. This is evident in the following lines:
On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home
Every A-frame had your number on the wall
The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley's acid was famed for its purity, and the third line is likely a reference to the famous psychedelic bus named Further, which was used by the Merry Pranksters, who were supplied their LSD by Owsley himself.
The lyric "You'd go to LA on a dare and you'd go it alone" alludes to a story in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about a trip taken by chief Prankster Ken Kesey.
The final verse foreshadows Owsley's eventual bust:
Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are
Owsley and another person were arrested after their car ran out of gas. According to an infamous story recounted by Walter Becker on VH1's Storytellers, Becker once informed a taxi cab driver in New York City that he was with the band Steely Dan. The cab driver remarked "Steely Dan - they had the stupidest lyric I ever heard in any song that ever has been written." Becker replied "You're kidding - what was that?" The cab driver responded with "Is there gas in the car? Yes, there's gas in the car".[3]
The song features a famous and notoriously difficult jazz-inflected electric guitar solo by guitarist Larry Carlton, notable for a single finger-tapped hammer-on near the end. (Fingertapping was not widely known in rock till two years later with the release of Van Halen's first album.) The drum track was played by Bernard "Pretty" Purdie whose long-time session partner, Chuck Rainey, plays the bass. The song was recognized as one of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". (June 2008)
The song was influential on musicians of the era. As an example, Steve Lukather, the heavily recorded session guitarist and member of Toto states the guitar solo is one of his favorites of all time.
While he was part of the Japanese Brass Band "Spectrum", Guitarist Shinji Nishi would perform bits of the guitar solo from this song, after playing their own song, "First Wave". At some point, both songs have a similar Chord progression.
A version of this track is one of several Steely Dan covers on the 1978 album by Woody Herman "Chick, Donald, Walter and Woodrow."
In 2007, Kanye West released the song "Champion" on his double-platinum album Graduation that samples Kid Charlemagne extensively.
[edit] Personnel
- Lead Vocals: Donald Fagen
- Drums: Bernard Purdie
- Bass: Chuck Rainey
- Guitar: Larry Carlton
- Keyboards: Don Grolnick, Paul Griffin
- Backup Vocals: Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, Vanetta Fields, Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews
[edit] References
- ^ "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs". Retrieved 2011-01-25. "In the late seventies, Steely Dan made records by pushing a revolving crew of monster session dudes through take after take, which yielded endless jaw-dropping guitar solos. Larry Carlton's multi-sectioned, cosmic-jazz lead in this cut may be the best of all: It's so complex it's a song in its own right."
- ^ Complete transcript of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker in a BBC-Online Chat, March 4, 2000
- ^ VH1 Storytellers, 1 February 2000.
