Any World That I’m Welcome To

Hey there Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew just dropped the needle on "Any World That I'm Welcome To" from Steely Dan's 1975 album Katy Lied, and if that groove doesn't settle right into your bones like a long ride down an open highway, then maybe you need another spin of the platter. This track sits near the end of that record, a mid-tempo number that carries a rare directness for Becker and Fagen, those two songwriting partners who usually wrapped their observations in layers of irony and cryptic characters. Here the narrator just wants out, any world that will take him better than the one he comes from, imagining quitting the job, catching a train through the mist, and landing somewhere the folks might actually have him. The chorus lifts with those Michael McDonald harmonies stacking up behind Donald Fagen's lead, giving the whole thing a sense of yearning that cuts through without the usual smirk. It is one of those deep cuts that the freeform album rock crowd at THE ZOO keeps coming back to, the kind that rewards a careful listen instead of background noise.

The song itself goes way back, written before Steely Dan even existed as a band. Becker and Fagen shopped it around in those early days, offering it to both Linda Hoover and Dusty Springfield, but neither one ended up recording it. That means the version we hear on Katy Lied is the one that finally stuck, recorded once the duo had settled into their studio-only mode after walking away from the road. Drumming on this particular track comes from Hal Blaine, the Wrecking Crew legend who racked up dozens of number one hits and six straight Record of the Year Grammys in the late sixties and early seventies. Jeff Porcaro handled the drums on every other cut from the album, the young player already a veteran of the Sonny and Cher show, but for this one they brought in Blaine, either because Porcaro slept in that day or simply because sometimes you clear space for the champ. Either way the result is a drum part that sounds effortless until you realize how much space and feel it leaves for the piano and those backing vocals. Fagen has talked over the years about the push and pull of making these records, the way they chased the perfect take only to run into mechanical gremlins, and Katy Lied carried its own share of those troubles with the DBX noise reduction system that left the finished mixes a little less open than they wanted. Still the song survives with that wistful pull intact, a reminder that even the most meticulous studio craftsmen could let a little raw longing show through.

Speaking of how these cats got started, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met as students at Bard College up in Annandale-on-Hudson back in 1967. Fagen was walking past the Red Balloon café when he heard Becker practicing electric guitar, the playing sounding so professional and contemporary that Fagen figured the guy must have some serious chops. They discovered they dug the same jazz from the twenties through the mid-sixties, the same soul and Chicago blues, plus a shared taste for black humor and writers like Nabokov and Vonnegut. Pretty soon they were writing nutty little tunes together on an upright piano in the sitting room of Ward Manor, that old mansion the college used as a dorm. After Fagen graduated and Becker left school, they headed down to Brooklyn and tried to peddle songs in the Brill Building, landing a publishing deal through a connection with Jay and the Americans. They even joined that group's touring band for a stretch, using pseudonyms, before Gary Katz brought them out to Los Angeles as staff songwriters for ABC/Dunhill. The label expected pop hits for acts aimed at the teen market, but the pair quietly assembled their own group in an unfinished wing of the ABC building, bringing in Denny Dias and Jeff Baxter on guitars along with Jim Hodder on drums. They took the name Steely Dan from a dildo in William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, cut Can't Buy a Thrill in 1972, and suddenly the whole thing was rolling, even if Fagen's anxiety about fronting a live band meant they added David Palmer on vocals for a while.

By the time they reached Katy Lied they had already decided the road was not for them, playing their last gig in July 1974 and shifting fully into the studio with a rotating cast of session players. That move let them chase the arrangements they heard in their heads without worrying about what a permanent band could pull off night after night. The album still carries the marks of that transition, with Denny Dias contributing guitar, Michael Omartian on the bulk of the keyboards including that expensive Bösendorfer, and the familiar crew of Rainey, Felder, and the rest. "Any World That I'm Welcome To" stands out as one of the more open-hearted moments amid the satirical portraits that fill the rest of the record, the narrator's desire to hide and start over feeling almost plainspoken next to songs like "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" or "Doctor Wu." Fans have noted over the years how the track benefits from McDonald's ardent support vocals and Blaine's snare work, the whole thing breathing in a way that rewards a good stereo. You can dig deeper into the catalog and the stories on the Steely Dan official website, where the discography lists Katy Lied right alongside the rest of the seventies albums and the liner notes from the reissue series walk through the decision to hang up the touring sneakers after that last show.

The band kept evolving after that, releasing The Royal Scam, Aja, and Gaucho before the long break, then returning in the nineties for tours and a couple more studio albums. Walter Becker passed in 2017, but Donald Fagen carried the live shows for years after. The music stays in circulation through fan communities that trade stories, set lists, and deep cuts the way radio used to do before everything got sliced into singles. You can find the official page on Facebook where verified posts keep the catalog in front of people, and the only official Instagram account at steelydan_official shares clips and reminders of the catalog. Active Facebook groups for fans, including the long-running Steely Dan Fans group with its thousands of members discussing the records and related artists, keep the conversation going in a way that feels like the old freeform stations. Those groups treat the music with the kind of respect that matches the care Becker and Fagen put into every chord change and lyric twist. So whether you are hearing "Any World That I'm Welcome To" for the first time or the hundredth, it still lands like an invitation to step outside the usual noise and find a place that fits a little better. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning these deep cuts for the Freaks who still want the full album experience, the long ride, the stories behind the grooves. Keep the dial locked right here.