The Pop Corporation

It’s not often you get new Steely Dan material to listen to, even moreso now that only Donald Fagen remains since Walter Becker shrugged off his mortal coil.

However, there’s a new Steely Dan song to listen to!

With The Dan were recording the hipsters’ favourite LP – ‘Gaucho’ – they recorded a track that didn’t make the final cut, thanks to it being accidentally erased in the studio. Back then, you couldn’t press ‘undo’ on a computer.

They tried to record it again, but for reasons clear only to themselves, they shelved the song and got on with their lives.

However, ‘The Second Arrangement’ is now seeing the light of day thanks to a massive stroke of luck. You see, Roger Nichols who was engineering the track, sneakily kept a rough copy for himself! He took the tape home, and it was all but forgotten. Nichols passed away in 2011, and his wife found the tape going through some old things.

“My dad wasn’t the trashman, but anything anyone would throw away in the studio he’d want to save,” said Nichols’ daughter, Cimcie. “Much to our dismay, though, because when he died we had hoards of stuff. Dad kept everything.” She put the tape, labeled “SECOND ARR,” in a safe along with other items from her father’s home.

Cue the pandemic and Cimcie thought she’d look through the contents of the safe before posting on Facebook: “Three work tapes left the recording studio the night before the infamous Steely Dan ‘Second Arrangement’ deletion. We’ve never played it. Probably smart to play and transfer at the same time. What should we do with it? It feels like a magical treasure that my mom has kept safe for decades. Good job mom!”

Eventually, the tape found it’s way to United Recording studio in LA, and Bill Smith was tasked with reviving the audio.

Steely Dan have only ever played the song once at a rarities gig in 2011, with song reaching cultish status amongst obsessives. Fagen said of the track: “We tried to reconstruct it, but we just didn’t have the heart to do it over.”

And the clean-up job is first rate, resulting in something of a holy grail of cassettes being reborn into… well… the worry with these things is that it’ll be third rate material that the band were right to ditch, but ‘The Second Arrangement’ is Steely Dan gold!

As great as the ‘Gaucho’ LP is, this track would have made it even greater.

Either way, we’re lucky to hear it and what a wonderful ending to a lovely passion project.

Listen below and check out the great home footage of Fagen and Becker, as well as some emotional responses to hearing the song for the first time proper.

Magical stuff.