Reelin' in the Years is a song by American rock band Steely Dan, released as the second single from their 1972 debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill. The song was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and features Fagen on vocals
In 2009, Rolling Stone described this track as "a prime early example of what would become the Dan's trademark vibe, marrying a sardonic kiss-off to an ex to a bouncy shuffle groove, and adding on some white-hot guitar dazzlement courtesy of Elliott Randall to bring the whole thing home." In the same interview, Fagen said "It's dumb but effective," and Becker said "It's no fun." The guitar solo on the original recorded version, by session player Elliott Randall and was recorded in one take. It has reportedly been rated by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page as his favourite solo of all time and scored it 12/10.
Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974 Becker and Fagen retired from live performances to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies". Becker and Fagen played together in a variety of bands from their time together studying at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. They later moved to Los Angeles, gathered a band of musicians, and began recording albums. Their first album, Can't Buy a Thrill, established a template for their career, blending elements of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, blues and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics. The band enjoyed critical and commercial success through seven studio albums, peaking with their top-selling album Aja. They have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001.
