Birders and Steely Dan

So. Recently I've started going birding with a local birder on a regular basis. The trips involve quite a lot of sitting in a car where I talk rubbish and my birding mate politely listens. But in the course of talking rubbish, it transpires that despite being different in age, background, interests (other than birding), we have the same all time favourite album; Aja, by Steely Dan.

Yesterday Walter Becker, one half of said duo, died. Another birder who I follow on the side bar to this blog, paid a couple of paragraphs of tribute. I'm pretty sure this is the first time said birding blogger has commented in this way on anything other than birds. I got wondering if there is something about birders and Steely Dan.

Much of Rock Music is a fairly straightforward display of maleness, like a colossal lek. Rock bands compete to be the ultimate male, singing songs of prowess, strength, and masculine vigour, advertising their heroic status like a male bird advertising for mates. In this world, Steely Dan stood out. They were the nerds on the edge of the playground pointing out the ridiculousness of it all.

If you haven't seen the Classic Albums episode on Aja, it is well worth digging out. Steely Dan come across as a couple of misfits who found each other and started wrote songs together. They eventually formed a band and started singing because no-one else would sing their songs. They formed a rock band because that was the popular medium, but their heart was in fifties jazz and r&b. Aja was the album they made for themselves, to put down somewhere the things that mattered to them, not the things they thought would sell. Famously, they didn't just rotate session musicians, they rotated entire bands until they got the precise sound they were looking for. They succeeded magnificently.

So what does this have to do with birders? Well, as a general rule, we are the boys who stood on the edge of the playground whilst the more popular lads played football or bragged about their latest achievements. Whilst everyone else was clamouring for attention, fighting for their place in the testosterone hierarchy, we were looking in the other direction at a bird and asking the four basic questions all birders ask: What is it? What is it doing here? Why is it doing that? Can I tick it?

So I think birders have a natural affinity with Steely Dan. An instinctive empathy with sarcastic observations, an indifference to things other people think matter a lot, and obsessions about perfection in areas that other people think don't matter.

I could post a Steely Dan song here, but there are lots on YouTube and you can find them if you want. Part of the fun of browsing youtube is ending up in areas you didn't know existed. Through Aja I came across the drummer Bernard Purdie. I could listen all day to Bernard Purdie playing the drums. I could listen all day to him just talking. Here he does both.