“Do It Again” by Steely Dan

"Do It Again" is the first thing you hear on Can't Buy a Thrill, Steely Dan's 1972 debut, and it announces a band with no interest in sounding like anybody else. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote it, Gary Katz produced, and it slinks along in G minor on a cool, rolling groove, Victor Feldman's percussion ticking over Jim Hodder's drums and Becker's bass while Fagen sings lead with a deadpan sneer. Then come the solos: Denny Dias on electric sitar, and Fagen on a so-called plastic organ, a Yamaha YC-30, bending the pitch with its sliding control.

The single trimmed the intro and outro and dropped the organ solo, and it climbed to 6 on the Hot 100 in 1973, their second-highest showing. When the band played The Midnight Special that February, their live frontman David Palmer took the lead vocal instead.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.