Hey Nineteen

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"Hey Nineteen" is a song by American jazz rock band Steely Dan, written by members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and released on their 1980 album Gaucho.

1 Background
2 Trivia
3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Background

Set in Scarsdale, New York, "Hey Nineteen" describes the obstacles encountered by a middle-aged male protagonist wooing a 19-year-old college girl^[1]. Sings Fagen:

We got nothin' in common

We can't dance together

We can't talk at all

Please take me along when you slide on down

The song's primary theme is generational differences. Most troublingly to the narrator, his companion is too young to "remember the Queen of Soul", Aretha Franklin. The two dance to different music, and would seem completely incompatible, having no mutual interests, save possibly for "the Cuervo Gold" (a brand of tequila) and "the fine Colombian" (a reference to marijuana or cocaine). Notably, Fagen himself was only 13 years older than the student when the song was released. The ending is ambiguous, possibly by design, as to how these items actually fit into the puzzle^[2].

"Hey Nineteen" peaked at #10 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart (higher than any other Gaucho track), and #68 on the Black Singles chart^[3].

The sixteenth episode of the sitcom Wings' fifth season (88th overall) was named "Hey, Nineteen" after the song, and aired February 10, 1994^[4].

In late July of 2006, actor-screenwriter Owen Wilson referred to the song, ostensibly as a potential title for an upcoming film, in a tongue-in-cheek statement released through his spokeswoman. This was in response to the "open letter" to Wilson's brother, actor Luke Wilson, which was posted on Steely Dan's official web site on July 17, 2006^[5]. This letter implied, in part, that the film You, Me and Dupree, produced by Owen Wilson, was an uncredited adaptation of their song "Cousin Dupree", released in 2000. Said Wilson: "I have never heard the song `Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, `HEY 19.'"^[6]

[edit] Trivia

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Beginning with their 1993-1994 performances, as documented in the Alive in America release, the phrase "Hey Nineteen/That's Aretha Franklin/She don't remember/Queen of Soul" was replaced with "Hey Nineteen/That's Otis Redding/She don't remember/King of Soul." While singing the song in the Two Against Nature tour of 2000, Fagen often left the name attribution blank for the singing-along audiences to fill in, and when most of them sang "Aretha Franklin," he corrected them by saying, "No, that's Otis Redding." In the 2007 Heavy Rollers tour, Fagen has reverted to the Aretha Franklin reference, presumably for comic effect, since the veteran fans have by now been trained to shout, "Otis Redding."

According to the John Belushi biography, Wired, Belushi called this one of his favorite songs. He was so inspired that he wrote a script based on the story in the song.

The song was also featured on the show Entourage (Season 3, Episode 16, "Gotcha!").