Drummer reacts to "Babylon Sisters" by Steely Dan 

yougottashakeitbabyyougottashakeitbabyyougottashakeiiiit

So many California references. The Babylon Sisters are LA and SF. Shake It is the earthquakes. Sunday in TJ (Tijauna) so many from southern Cal would drive down on weekends to party. Drive west on Sunset (Blvd) to the sea (Pacific Palisades). Santa Anna winds (hot dry winds that sweep down over Southern Cal). Distant lights from across the bay.

That’s the Purdie shuffle right there done by the man himself Bernard Purdie. He also used it on Home at Last off of Aja. Jeff Porcaro of Toto used it in Rosanna and even John Bonham of Led Zeppelin on Fool In the Rain from their last album before he died.

The rhythm section of Purdie and Rainey is on so many incredible records. Kings.

Brilliant song, with that dark silvery, foreboding brass...an evocation of the dark, louche aspects of Hollywood. I can see why any drummer would get excited by Bernard Purdie's work on this one - he's spot on at every point here. The man is still around and fully active on the live circuit. :)

This young man gets it! Move and Groove to The Dan, the minute it starts, you got to move and progress, doing no less than those of us from the 70's digest.

Grew up in LA and used to drive west on Sunset to the sea years before this song. We were looking for our Babylon Sisters on the beach. Fine and young. We liked West LA women, we were from the Valley near Magnolia Blvd, a true story.

I’ve seen steely Dan four times. Every show was unbelievable!

I just love the pace of this one. It just kinda lopes along. Purdie and Rainey are brilliant....

Gaucho is my favorite SD album, every single song is incredible. This song, and Hey Nineteen revolve around an older man trying to deal with his aging with a younger woman. Great theme carried out brilliantly. More from the album please!

Ahhh, one of my faves, on my favorite SD album---Aja comes in 2nd. Always with me on the road (for decades). This is an album I only listen to as a whole. So many of the best (as always) playing here. :)

Stockholm, Sweden 2000 - Babylon Sisters live, a memory for life!

Patti Austin singing Background. Listen to her tune 'Ability to Swing'

My all time favorite, saw them play this a few times, "Babylon Sister....shake it"👍🏻🥰🎶🎶❤

as a drummer you gotta like the Dan

Shake it!

It's about a guy, past his prime, still trying to play the game with the younger studs. He's having a hard time coming to grips with his diminished abilities and the toll that lifestyle takes, but he's starting to catch on. All of this in the decadence capital of the country. AND, the tune itself is sexy af to boot ❤

any Dan and any Donald Fagen solo song. Can't be wrong

No band like them and probably never will be. The list of musicians alone that played with them is insane. Just some of the drummers: Gadd, Purdy, Gordon, Pocarro, Keltner, Marotta

Brilliant song.

One of my favorites!! ❤

I bought the album just before my 21st birthday, and wore it out, just as I did with AJA! I,ve been a Dan fan since 74! Im 64 now still digging my favorite band in 2024/ 😂😂/ Time out of Mind off Gaucho next ok/ Thx Lee

I have the DTS CD 5.1 version of this album. Stunning! BTW, My Rival has turned out to be my favorite off this album.

You are so much fun to watch reacting!! You are so authentic groovin on the music and not overanalying the lyrics initially. Other reaction channels trip on dissecting lyrics that it is a total turnoff - too much logic! ITS ART! Appreciate you "get" SD!

bernard purdie on drums

well it's about Dan time!

It took several musos- neither Donald or Walter play on it- and two whole weeks to mix this one song. And it's damn near perfection as you can get.

Great, great song. Thanks for sharing, L33!

Sexy. My thoughts exactly. I started listening to Steely Dan when they started. This came out when I was in college. It's really hard for a Steely Dan fan to pick and pinpoint only one favorite. I'm no different. But this ranks high up the. Those drums.

I want your Dan shirt in the Background! 🤣😎♥️✌️

Such a cool track. You can hear how they were changing their sound now a bit that they were into the early 80's. It's a slightly more stripped down production with a bigger 'room' sound. I grew up in SoCal so the lyrical references made sense, and the overall vibe was totally on point for the times, coming out of the disco era and kicking off the Reagan years.

When I used to listen to this always invisionsed driving into the sunset....

Great song and reaction!! As for the “Purdy Shuffle” , there is a great video with Bernard Purdy being interviewed by Rick Beato on Rick’s RU-vid channel. He talks about the shuffle and many other things. You should definitely check it out!!

Saw this one live, it was freaking awesome!

You missed out how good Don's vocals are. ..... He's brilliant.

Here come those Santa Ana winds again that is a reference to the fact that when the santa ana wind come thru L.A. it is coming off the desert sand so your gettinng positive ions in the air which makes oeople irritable unlike when the wind us coming from the ocean inlans now your getting negative ions whuch are like antioxidants and make you feel good

Just about the smoothest Steely Dan song. Maybe one of the smoothest period. Don't Take Me Alive on a Steely Dan Tee shirt. Is that a subliminal reference to Show Biz Kids? I'd like to think so. My mind is blown either way 🤯

Still prefer the studio version to the two times I’ve seen it live. When we covered this, the girl backing singers totally ruled the outtro (which ended in a seriously long term relationship). Thanks, Donald and Walter 😇

Must admit , you have excellent taste in music ! I'm 76 and can relate to a lot of music that I went through over the years .

ARGH i missed it!!! DAMMIT i wanted to be here for this one

One of my favorite tracks from the Dan! Janie Runaway is my fave, followed by Babylon Sister (Shake it) and The Fez with Kid Charlemagne thrown in for fun! There are just too many. Glad you liked it Lee!

Love this song, takes me back to San Francisco when it was a magical place. Nice reaction, Lee, you really do get into it.

This song is so good you can taste it. 😋

Waitil u hear the title track ......I wanted my brothers's band to play this one but it was too difficult also the lasy song is worth the wait ...Third World Man eoah what a mood or vibe the definition of Babylon could be that book that came out in the 70's called Hollywood Babylon

You better shake it.

One of my all time Vibe songs.....it creates such an ambiance...

In my SD top 5.

My understanding is that this project was primarily Fagen-driven as Becker was having some addiction issues at the time, and his girlfriend died of an overdose in early 1980. This album was released in November 1980 and by June 1981 Don and Walter had parted ways. Being perfectionists, a handful of tracks were recorded and discarded for various reasons. These have never been included on any Steely Dan album or compilation, but they are available on RU-vid.

I just LOVE seeing you react. And L33, just another reason why you really should listen to yout elders!! LMAO, JK. of course! Thanks for doing this. I appeciate ya'!

Another of Steely's top ten greats. So glad to be here. Rock on bro.

for a fun variant of the drum groove, Zep Fool In The Rain.

The Purdie suffle. Great reaction, thanks

This song is about a late 30s guy who has a 3-way with younger girls, Babylon Sisters. He finds out he can't handle it.

a friend of mine, good musician, is studying drums and learning this beat. it is NOT trivial. Purdie Shuffle, rendered by the man himself.

This track is about a Man who is having an Affair with two Strippers, and coming to terms with his own Age!

Fun fact, Tom Scott also guest played with the hardcore punk band Fear!

Dont miss the BASS clarinets in the chorus right after "...Shake it" who else uses bass clari's?

Turn that jungle music down

The Cali album.

Such a cool tune. ❤😊

Funky for sure. Love it! Hey Nineteen was the big hit off this album

Babylon is an old time reference to Hollywood. So Babylon Sisters are the cute girls hanging around Hollywood trying to get famous!

I have a random request. Please react to “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon. I think you will really like it. Guitar and drums great.

Hey brother! I just stumbled upon your channel today because of your reactions to the Dan. I don't know how you feel about lyrical breakdowns, but the Dan is known for their amazing lyrics, and since you brought up the lyrics, I wrote a long interpretation of the lyrics for another reaction channel, so I thought I'd share most of it here (taking out the parts which wouldn't make sense if you didn't want that video). The lyrics in this are just cryptic enough as to be fun to try and dissect. If you object to long lyrical breakdowns, by all means delete the post and I won't be offended, or let me know and I'll take it down and not do something like it again. With all of that said, here's my take: First thing to note, "Babylon by the bay" is another name for San Francisco, and San Fran is mentioned in the song, so, "Babylon sisters" is thought by many to be a pair of sisters from San Francisco, and a love triangle, hence the "love's not a game for three." Some have even suggested they might be twins. Others believe the Babylon Sisters are the two cities themselves of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Others still believe both to be true and Fagen meant Babylon Sisters to be a double entendre. That's my belief. Fagen really is a master, and it makes WAY more sense if he meant Babylon Sisters to be both the cities themselves, AND two ladies with whom he had 3 way. The song opens, however, with a drive down Sunset Blvd. towards the ocean--one of the true delights to drive in L.A. or so my friends from there tell me. It's debated whether Fagen is talking about already being with one of the sisters? Or both? Is he about to have a menage-a-tois? "Close your eyes and you'll be there... It's everything they say, the end of a perfect day" suggests, IMO, that yes, he's about to have a three way with a couple of sisters from San Fran while the girls sing to him "tell me I'm the only one..." Next he describes the events... "jog with show folk on the sand" is a reference to hanging out with the famous people in LA on the beach, drinking Kirschwasser from a shell, which is a clear, colorless cherry brandy, San Francisco Show and Tell is him showing off the two ladies/sisters from San Francisco. The next line "I should know by now it's just a spasm" refers to orgasm... and one he could just as easily have had with hookers in Tijuana because in both cases, there's a price to pay "it's cheap but it's not free." In TJ you paid cash. With this threesome, the payment comes in hurt feelings, a realization that he's "not what [he] used to be" and that, again, "love's not a game for three." There are some who refer to the next line as meaning cocaine, but "My friends say no, don't go for that cotton candy" does not make sense to me as cocaine, especially not with the lines that follow, and especially not in the year this came out. Instead, I believe "cotton candy" refers to "very sweet candy" in the form of young women--probably right in line with "Hey Nineteen." (It's worth noting Gaucho featured both THIS song AND "Hey Nineteen.") His friends say "no, dude... don't go for the young stuff! You're playing with fire if you do!" "The kid will live and learn as he watches his bridges burn" seems to me to be an obvious allusion to him messing around with women that young and how he'll have to learn that's not the best way to go. It's not politically correct today, but it's worth noting back in the 70s, relationships with girls in their mid teens was not nearly as frowned upon as it is today (Ringo Starr even did a song about a relationship with a 16 year old and how an older guy would be able to brag about it called "You're 16"), so it's possible the girls were maybe as young as 16 since that was the age of consent back then in many places.... That makes more sense to me especially when referring to "cotton candy" as I could EASILY see someone referring to 16 year old girls as Cotton Candy. Clearly 16 year olds are not really emotionally ready to be in relationships with people in their mid 20s to mid 30s--which is why being in such a relationship would be "playing with fire." Of course, the line "so fine so young" is also repeated throughout the song, and it's my opinion that's just another clue. Anyway, that's my take on it. Hope you enjoyed!

"Aja" is NY, "Gaucho" is LA...

Always confused where my favorite line came from: Turn that jungle music down, at least 'til we get outta town.

Loves not a game for free

Kirschwasser can only be introduced into a song by SD. And only because of the then fad of aperitif’s being the cool drink of the day. Cotton candy, well that had been the fad of nostrils in the know for a long time. Shake it !!!!! 😉

if you don't know, you may find this interesting: My Old School - Leonid & Friends feat. “Rox Bros” - Alex and Nikita Pozdnyakov (Steely Dan cover) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P_8aZZ9d_EA.html

We're here for the BS. Shake it baby shake it!!!

Who is that Gaucho amigo?

Yet another steely dan song. Another sunny positive sounding song about shady people. Doing shady things.

Decadence is the word that comes to mind. I believe Babylon is said in the Bible to have been destroyed by God for its wickedness.