Katy Lied

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title: "Katy Lied" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["steely-dan-albums", "1975-albums", "abc-records-albums", "albums-arranged-by-jimmie-haskell", "albums-produced-by-gary-katz"] topic_path: "arts/music" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katy_Lied" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox album"]

Field	Value
name	Katy Lied
type	studio
artist	Steely Dan
cover	Steely Dan-Katy Lied.jpg
released	March 1975
recorded	November 1974–January 1975
studio	ABC, Los Angeles, California
genre	Jazz rock
length	35:20
label	ABC
producer	Gary Katz
prev_title	Pretzel Logic
prev_year	1974
next_title	The Royal Scam
next_year	1976
misc	{{Singles
name	Katy Lied
type	studio
single1	Black Friday
single1date	May 1975
single2	Bad Sneakers
single2date	September 1975
::

| name = Katy Lied | type = studio | artist = Steely Dan | cover = Steely Dan-Katy Lied.jpg | alt = | released = March 1975 | recorded = November 1974–January 1975 | venue = | studio = ABC, Los Angeles, California | genre = Jazz rock | length = 35:20 | label = ABC | producer = Gary Katz | prev_title = Pretzel Logic | prev_year = 1974 | next_title = The Royal Scam | next_year = 1976 | misc = {{Singles | name = Katy Lied | type = studio | single1 = Black Friday | single1date = May 1975 | single2 = Bad Sneakers | single2date = September 1975

Katy Lied is the fourth studio album by American rock band Steely Dan, released in March 1975, by ABC Records; reissues have since been released by MCA Records due to ABC's acquisition by the former in 1979. It was the first album the group made after they stopped touring, as well as their first to feature backing vocals by Michael McDonald.

In the United States, the album peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, and it has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single "Black Friday" charted at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Recording

The album was the first one recorded by Steely Dan after guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and drummer Jim Hodder left the group as a result of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's decision to stop touring and focus solely on recording with various studio musicians. Guitarist Denny Dias, a founding member of Steely Dan, contributed to the album as a session musician, as did singer Michael McDonald and drummer Jeff Porcaro, who were both members of Steely Dan's final touring band. Then only 20 years old, Porcaro played drums on every track on the album except "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)", which features session drummer Hal Blaine. Larry Carlton, who became a regular collaborator of the group, made his first appearance on a Steely Dan album playing guitar on "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More".

Band leaders Becker and Fagen said they were dissatisfied with the album's sound quality because of an equipment malfunction with the then-new dbx noise reduction system. The damage was mostly repaired after consulting with the engineers at dbx, but Becker and Fagen still refused to listen to the completed album.

The album was remastered in UHQR (ultra high quality record) in 2024 by Acoustic Sounds and reissued on vinyl and digitally on February 7, 2025.

Lyrics

"Black Friday", which features Michael Omartian on piano and David Paich on Hohner electric piano and was released as the first single from the album, relates the story of a crooked speculator who makes his fortune and absconds to Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia, as, according to Fagen, "It was the place most far away from LA we could think of". The town also "fit[s] the metre of the song and rhyme[s] with 'book'", though Fagen did not realise that locals pronounce it "Musselbrook" (omitting the "w").

Title and packaging

The album's title comes from the lyrics of "Doctor Wu" ("Katy lies / You can see it in her eyes"), and the album cover is a picture of a katydid, a "singing" (stridulating) insect related to crickets and grasshoppers, as a pun on the title. Walter Becker told Rolling Stone, during the band's 2009 tour: "It's about that uneasy relationship between the patient and doctor. People put faith in doctors, yet they abuse their power and become dangerous." The back cover photograph of Donald Fagen (in reindeer sweater) and Denny Dias (in overalls and sombrero and holding a tank of helium) was taken by Becker during the session (sometime in 1972-73) for their Schlitz beer jingle.

Critical reception

| rev1 = AllMusic | rev1Score = | rev2 = Chicago Tribune | rev2Score = | rev3 = Christgau's Record Guide | rev3Score = A− | rev4 = Encyclopedia of Popular Music | rev4Score = | rev5 = The Great Rock Discography | rev5Score = 8/10 | rev6 = MusicHound Rock | rev6Score = 4/5 | rev7 = Pitchfork | rev7Score = 9.1/10 | rev8 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide | rev8Score = | rev9 = Select | rev9Score = | rev10 = Tom Hull – on the Web | rev10Score = A Reviewing the album in 1975 for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said that, while Katy Lied might be Steely Dan's "biggest" album to that point, he found it "slightly disappointing" on a musical level, citing the loss of lead guitarist Baxter and what he perceived as "cool, cerebral, one-dimensional" jazz guitar influences. Nonetheless, Christgau admitted that he played the album frequently, and he voted it the third-best album of the year on his ballot for the 1975 Pazz & Jop critics poll, on which it placed sixth. John Mendelsohn was more critical in Rolling Stone, writing that "however immaculately tasteful and intelligent" Steely Dan's music may be in theory, it did not register with him emotionally and remained "exemplarily well-crafted and uncommonly intelligent schlock". Mendelsohn found the lyrics interesting, but inscrutable, the musicianship tasteful and well-performed, but not stimulating, and Fagen's singing unique-sounding, but seemingly passionless. In a review in Rolling Stone from 1977, Cameron Crowe called the album "anonymous, absolutely impeccable swing-pop" with "no cheap displays of human emotion".

Retrospectively, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described the album as "a smoother version of Pretzel Logic" and "another excellent record" by Steely Dan. Travis Elborough wrote in his 2008 book The Long-Player Goodbye: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again that Katy Lied, while not on par with Pretzel Logic (1974) or Aja (1977), was still "up there as jazz rock staples go". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rob Sheffield said the album completed a trilogy of Steely Dan albums (the other parts being Countdown to Ecstasy (1973) and Pretzel Logic) that is "a rock version of Chinatown, a film noir tour of L.A.'s decadent losers, showbiz kids, and razor boys". Jazz historian Ted Gioia cited the album as an example of Steely Dan "proving that pop-rock could equally benefit from a healthy dose of jazz" during their initial tenure, which coincided with a period when rock musicians frequently experimented with jazz idioms and techniques.

Of lead single "Black Friday", Cash Box said that it contains elements that made earlier Steely Dan singles successful, such as "Hot Fender Rhodes piano tracks, lead guitar work, rhythm that won't stop cooking and identifiable vocals and mix that lets you know Gary Katz has been hard at work on the knobs."

Track listing

| headline = Side one | all_writing = Walter Becker and Donald Fagen | title1 = Black Friday | length1 = 3:40 | title2 = Bad Sneakers | length2 = 3:16 | title3 = Rose Darling | length3 = 2:59 | title4 = Daddy Don't Live in that New York City No More | length4 = 3:12 | title5 = Doctor Wu | length5 = 3:59 | headline = Side two | title6 = Everyone's Gone to the Movies | length6 = 3:41 | title7 = Your Gold Teeth II | length7 = 4:12 | title8 = Chain Lightning | length8 = 2:57 | title9 = Any World (That I'm Welcome To) | length9 = 3:56 | title10 = Throw Back the Little Ones | length10 = 3:11 | total_length = 35:20

Personnel

;Steely Dan

• Donald Fagen – piano, keyboards, vocals
• Walter Becker – bass guitar, guitar (solo on 1, 2), personnel photos

;Additional musicians

• Denny Dias – guitar (solo on 7)
• Rick Derringer – guitar (solo on 8)
• Dean Parks – guitar (solo on 3)
• Elliott Randall – guitar (solo on 10)
• Hugh McCracken – guitar
• Larry Carlton – guitar (4)
• Michael Omartian, David Paich – piano, keyboards
• Chuck Rainey, Wilton Felder – bass guitar
• Jeff Porcaro – drums (all except 9), dorophone
• Hal Blaine – drums (9)
• Victor Feldman – percussion, vibraphone
• Phil Woods – alto saxophone (5)
• Jimmie Haskell – horn arrangement (10)
• Bill Perkins – saxophone (10)
• Michael McDonald – backing vocals
• Sherlie Matthews, Carolyn Willis, Myrna Matthews – backing vocals (6)

;Production

• Gary Katz – producer
• Roger Nichols – engineer, personnel photos
• Stuart "Dinky" Dawson – sound consultant
• Bob DeAvila – real time analysis
• Rick Collins – mastering
• Dorothy White – cover photo ;Reissue
• Vartan – art direction
• Michael Diehl – design
• Daniel Levitin – consultant

Charts

Album

Weekly charts

::data[format=table] | Chart (1975) | Peak position | |---|---| | Australian Albums (Kent Music Report) | 28 | | US Billboard Top LPs & Tape | 13 | ::

::data[format=table] | Chart (2025) | Peak position | |---|---| ::

Year-end charts

::data[format=table]

Chart (1975)	Position
::

Singles

::data[format=table] | Year | Single | Catalogue number | Peak position | Chart | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1975 | "Black Friday" (B-side: "Throw Back the Little Ones") | ABC 12101 | 37 | US Billboard Hot 100 | | |1975 | "Bad Sneakers" (B-side: "Chain Lightning") | ABC 12128 | 103 | | ::

References

References

1. (1995). "The Great Rock Discography".
2. "Katy and the Gremlin".
3. Sweet, Brian. (2000). "Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years". Omnibus Press.
4. "How to Pronounce Muswellbrook (NSW)".
5. "Dr. Wu by Steely Dan - Songfacts".
6. Malooley, Jake. (July 21, 2023). "Hear Steely Dan's Schlitz beer jingle".
7. {{AllMusic. Stephen Thomas. Erlewine
8. Kot, Greg. (August 16, 1992). "Thrills, Scams and Nightflys". [[Chicago Tribune]].
9. Christgau, Robert. (1981). "[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]". [[Ticknor & Fields]].
10. Larkin, Colin. (2011). "[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music". [[Omnibus Press]].
11. Strong, Martin Charles. (2002). "The Great Rock Discography". [[National Academies Press.
12. Graff, Gary. (1996). "[[MusicHound". [[Visible Ink Press]].
13. Richardson, Mark. (November 20, 2019). "Steely Dan: Katy Lied". [[Pitchfork (website).
14. Prendergast, Mark. (September 1990). "Steely Dan: ''Katy Lied''".
15. Hull, Tom. (n.d.). "Grade List: Steely Dan".
16. Christgau, Robert. (April 21, 1975). "What Kind of a Best Rock and Roll Band in the World Is This?". [[The Village Voice]].
17. Christgau, Robert. (December 29, 1975). "It's Been a Soft Year for Hard Rock". The Village Voice.
18. Anon.. (December 29, 1975). "The 1975 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll". The Village Voice.
19. Mendelsohn, John. (May 8, 1975). "Steely Dan ''Katy Lied'' > Review". [[Rolling Stone]].
20. Crowe, Cameron. (December 15, 1977). "[no title]".
21. Elborough, Travis. (2009). "The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again". [[Soft Skull Press]].
22. Sheffield, Rob. (2004). "[[The New Rolling Stone Album Guide]]". [[Simon and Schuster]].
23. Gioia, Ted. (2011). "The History of Jazz". [[Oxford University Press]].
24. (May 17, 1975). "CashBox Record Reviews". Cash Box.
25. {{cite Kent
26. "Steely Dan Chart History: Billboard 200".
27. {{AllMusic. [[Billboard (magazine). Billboard]]

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