LowBallVideoChatter: Steely Dan, “Black Friday”

Good morning! It's Black Friday, a term some wanker marketing genius coined for the day after Thanksgiving when, ideally, retailers all across this mass-consumer-crazed nation of ours will be (the theory goes) left “in the black.” Though in these recessionary times, I'm not even expecting Christmas cards this year.

 

Before Black Friday was a co-opted media catch phrase (tonight would be a good night to invite some friends over and play the Black Friday drinking game — flip on CNN, and down a shot each time you hear the term), it was a song by snark-rockers Steely Dan, a track from their 1975 album Katy Lied.

 

Of course, Black Friday has also been a term used to describe a day of horrible wildfires in Australia, the day when four Chicago anarchists were hanged following the Haymarket Square riots, and, for some reason, Game 3 of the 1977 National League Championship Series, as well as a slew of other events that don't involve credit cards.

 

Have you heard that today is also North American Buy Nothing Day?

 

Here's a more recent version of Steely Dan — with Donald Fagen appearing even more lethargic than usual — playing the tune during the band's Two Against Nature tour. What's the Dan's “Black Friday” about? Appropriately, some have interpreted it as being about a stock market crash . . .