Reelin' In the Years

"Reelin' In the Years" is a song by jazz rock band Steely Dan, released as the sixth track on their 1972 album, Can't Buy a Thrill.

The song was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and features Fagen on vocals. The song was also a #11 hit on the Pop singles chart in 1973. In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song at number 95 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has reportedly said that Elliott Randall's guitar solo on "Reelin' In the Years" is his favorite solo of all time.^[1][2] That solo was also ranked the 40th best guitar solo of all time by the readers of Guitar World magazine.^[3] On the other hand, Fagen himself referred to the song as "dumb but effective" in Rolling Stone magazine, with Becker chiming in, "It's not fun." The 4-channel Quadrophonic mix of the recording has extra lead guitar fills not heard in the more common 2-channel Stereo version.

The song is featured in Rob Zombie's 2005 movie, The Devil's Rejects. It was also used as the theme music for the television series Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, which aired on BBC Three in the UK. "Reelin' In the Years" is used in the 1999 movie For Love of the Game. It is also used as the theme song to the RTE television show of the same name which is a historical Irish documentary covering one year per episode.

References