Sunday, September 03, 2017

RIP Walter Becker

Donald Fagen in Rolling Stone:
Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.
We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.
Walter had a very rough childhood - I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. 



Son you better be ready for love
On this glory day
This is your chance to believe
What I've got to say
Keep your eyes on the sky
Put a dollar in the kitty
Don't the moon look pretty

Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind

I am holding the mystical sphere
It's direct from Lhasa
Where people are rolling in the snow
Far from the world we know

Children we have it right here
It's the light in my eyes
It's perfection and grace
It's the smile on my face

Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind
 
Children we have it right here
It's the light in my eyes
It's perfection and grace
It's the smile on my face

Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind