Steely Dan is about, among other things, connection. It's the 3,000-mile live wire buzzing between 60s New England school days and 70s Laurel Canyon Showbiz, steel handcuffs linking jazz with pop, the Archies with William Burroughs, a shifting patchwork of vindictiveness and tenderness. Connection on all levels, deliberate and wildly accidental….

There are more, and shorter, songs [on Pretzel Logic] than on Countdown to Ecstasy, and while those maddening, fascinating references to private people, places and events still crop up, the overall feeling of the lyrics is significantly less obscure. The Dan evokes and suggests, yet the songs always feel complete and direct…. They seem confident that whatever you create out of what they suggest is going to hit the intended targets. The lushness of the music is tempered by their incomparable dry wit.

Though there's an uncharacteristic lack of import in some of the tunes ("Parker's Band...