Charlie Freak

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"Charlie Freak" is a song written and performed by Steely Dan. It appears on Pretzel Logic.

It is about a homeless drug user, referred to in the song as "Charlie," who sells his prized possession, a simple golden ring, to the narrator of the song to finance his addictions. This cash buys him enough of his drug of choice for Charlie to overdose and die. The narrator rushes to the morgue when he hears that Charlie has died and returns the ring to the corpse.

It has been postulated that the narrator serves the purpose of an Angel of Death, as the last lines of the song imply that he is taking Charlie "home," possibly on to an afterlife.^{[citation needed]}