‘My Old School’ Taught Steely Dan a Lesson
‘200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt
Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker met at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, the site of 1973’s “My Old School.” The tune was included on Steely Dan’s 1973 LP Countdown to Ecstasy. The song only reached №63 but is a fan favorite. Its lyrics describe their arrest, along with Fagen’s girlfriend, Dorothy White, in a marijuana raid.
“These were the days when there was a ‘war on longhairs,’ as they used to call it,” Fagen recalled in Entertainment Weekly, “and Bard’s in this kind of rural district. They picked up about 50 kids just at random. There were a few warrants, and one was for me, which was based totally on false testimony.”
“They went up and down the halls, knocking on doors,” said Terence Boylan, a friend and musical collaborator at the school. “Toilets were flushing everywhere to get rid of any pot that you had. I threw mine out the window. All you had to do was say to the cop, ‘What are you doing?’ They’d say, ‘That’s it, resisting arrest.’ Somebody would say, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ‘Oh, profanity! Arrest him.’”
“They handcuffed our hands behind our backs and put us in a paddy wagon and took us off to the Dutchess County Jail,” said Fagen. “They took all of the boys, about 35 of us, most with really long hair, and shaved our heads. I remember some of them were crying. I don’t think any of them had seen their head for three or four years.
“It didn’t make that much difference to me. But it was scary, you know? To hear the cell block door slam shut, the whole business with the handcuffs and the paddy wagon. I’d never been arrested or put in jail before.”
Bard College hired a lawyer and bailed out Fagen and the 50 students who had been arrested but didn’t free Becker and White because they were not technically students at the time.
“I asked them to bail my girlfriend out. She had nothing to do with this and was just visiting me. And they refused to do it. So when graduation time came I protested by not going.
“My case had already been dismissed — they had withdrawn the charges, actually. So I was sitting on a bench in front of Stone Row with my father and lawyer, just watching the graduation.
“A lot of the students were also angry because apparently, the school had let an undercover policeman be planted in the building and grounds department. Their cooperation with the investigation was despicable.”
The grudge continued in 1973 with the recording of “My Old School,” in which Fagen name-checks Annandale and promises he’s “never going back” to Bard until “California tumbles into the sea.”
“I don’t know how serious we were,” said Fagen, “but at the time, both of us were very pissed off at the school, that’s for sure.” Despite the song’s promise, Fagen returned to Bard in 1985 to receive an honorary doctorate. Why?
“Well, you know. I’m not one to hold a grudge.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of the 200 Greatest Rock Songs series and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.