RFI: What exactly are they saying in background vocals on Showbiz Kids?

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Is it:
a) Las Vegas
b) Lost Wages
c) Lot's Wages
d) some combination of above

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

There is already a Steely Dan thread up right now, but it's kind of long. The one I started by accident last week would also be inappropriate.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 20:30 (twenty years ago) link

I hear it as a combo of a) and b), but c) is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of before. The lyric sites I've seen don't give the backing vox.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Saturday, 27 November 2004 09:41 (twenty years ago) link

In some interview, they said that it was (highly, meticulously) deliberately a conflation of a) and b)...sort of like one of those drawings that looks like a vase or two faces, depending on how you blink. My analogy, not theirs. And I believe it was Lenny Bruce who originally called a) b).

― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Saturday, 27 November 2004 13:55 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...

I've never even considered it to be anything other than b)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:39 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, i think it's B.

― the unbearable lightness of peeing (orion), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Sounds like "Las Wages" to me.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

I've seen the same interview referenced above. I think it's actually Las Wages, a combo of A & B

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:48 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.steelydan.com/bbc.html

John Holland Do the backing singers in Show Biz Kids sing both 'Go to Las Vegas' AND 'Go to Lost Wages'?
Walter Actually they are saying "Go to Las Vegas" but they are mispronouncing it in the way that Lenny Bruce used to mispronounce on purpose, saying "lost wages".

― A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link

they say both, dummies

― shredding repis on the gnar gnar rad (chaki), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 01:18 (eighteen years ago) link

before massive hearing damage yeah i remember could detect them saying both. or atleast las vegas and then something different.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 01:26 (eighteen years ago) link

One of my least favorite SD songs, actually.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 02:00 (eighteen years ago) link

I like how the whole rest of the song is just an elaborate frame for the "Showbusiness kids making movies of themselves..." lines.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 06:50 (eighteen years ago) link

One of my least favorite SD songs, actually.

i agree. rickie lee jones and joe jackson do an incredible cover that almost made me love the original, but not quite.

i do love the tight clean punch of 'My Old School' right after SBK, though.

― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 07:56 (eighteen years ago) link

this might be my fave. luv the slidework from Rick Derringer (his finest moment?)

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Thursday, 13 April 2006 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link

my casual listening always told me it was "rolling off the sweetness, off the sweetness"

― Cheek0 (Cheek0), Thursday, 13 April 2006 00:32 (eighteen years ago) link

eleven months pass...

I still think it's a) then b) then c).

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 00:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I definitely seem to hear a) and b). Never thought about c), and don't really know what it might mean - wasn't Lot the guy who was turned to a pillar of salt? I don't recall ever reading anything about his salary. Or is it a "salt = ancient form of currency = wages" sort of connection that I'm missing here?

― o. nate, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:10 (seventeen years ago) link

John Holland[Do the backing singers in Show Biz Kids sing both 'Go to Las Vegas' AND 'Go to Lost Wages'?
Walter: Actually they are saying "Go to Las Vegas" but they are mispronouncing it in the way that Lenny Bruce used to mispronounce on purpose, saying "lost wages".

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not one to always take artist's statements about their music at face value (Steely Dan's self-penned liner notes for their CD reissues seem to have some deliberate whoppers in them), but Becker's statement seems sincere enough, and it reconciles well with my own hearing of the song, so I'm inclined to accept it.

― o. nate, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link

You go to Las Vegas, lost wages
You go to Las Vegas

I went to Wlberforce House ystrdy. /The World love him; I'm a bad Noh chucklebutty of tbe world that tred.

[homageI love you N Reek you http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~jwheat/santerre38.jpg[/hoMAGE0

DEAD

― Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, Noodle Vague, I read that too. But even if the image of c) is only an auditory hallucination as somebody else on the web said, I'll take it, for the pun on "wages" and the desert connnection. o. nate, have you heard the expression "the wages of sin"?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link

B-but, who is this "Joachim" they sing about?

― M.V., Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Hahaha. Lock it

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 01:49 (seventeen years ago) link

My least favourite Steely Dan track ever besides "The Royal Scam". Both are repetitive and boring.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 21:05 (seventeen years ago) link

this song is great just for the "they got the Steely Dan t-shirt" and "they don't give a fuck about anybody else" lines!

although ever since I've heard this song the backing refrain has puzzled me. At first I thought it was "outrageous, you know its outrageous"

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link

otm. also the "sleeping with the shade on the light" line.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 29 March 2007 05:47 (seventeen years ago) link

I hear it as "Blowing life's wages"

― the next grozart, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:09 (seventeen years ago) link

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