“Hey Nineteen” by Steely Dan

"Hey Nineteen" was the first single pulled from Gaucho, Steely Dan's 1980 album on MCA, and it's a sly, rueful little number about a seduction across the generation gap. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote it; Fagen sings it and plays electric piano and synthesizer, Becker handles bass and guitar, Hugh McCracken adds more guitar, Rick Marotta sits at the drums, and Victor Feldman and Steve Gadd supply percussion, with Frank Floyd and Zachary Sanders on backing vocals. Gary Katz produced and Elliot Scheiner mixed, and the whole thing glides along with a frictionless, lacquered cool.

It climbed to number ten on the Hot 100 in 1981. The flip side was a 1974 live "Bodhisattva", introduced by a tipsy Jerome Aniton, one of the band's drivers. Becker and Fagen parted ways that same year without ever playing it live, but after they reunited in 1993 it became one of their most-played concert songs.

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