The death of Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker brings one of pop’s most idiosyncratic songwriting partnerships to a close. With Becker’s knotty soloing and funky bass licks paired with Donald Fagen’s organ tones and earnest, knowing croon, the pair stand alone: too literate and socially conscious for soft rock, too naff for hard, and all the better for it. Fagen will hopefully continue to perform, but either way, they leave behind a magical canon – the selection here is a very small part.

Only a Fool Would Say That

A quintessential lead guitar line floats over Becker’s dancing bass: charged with both the inquisition of jazz and the direction of rock, it meanders with purpose around acoustic strumming, and a soulful vocal line by Fagen. The resultant blissed-out vibe pre-empts the Balearic slickness of Chris Rea or Steve Winwood, a good decade before their pomp; it also jars with the lyrics, which pour icy realism onto the idiot warmth of the hippie dream.

Reelin’ in the Years

On the 1972 album Can’t Buy a Thrill, Only a Fool Would Say That segues into the rollicking Reelin’ in the Years, encapsulating both sides of the band – their smoothness offset with an almost wacky energy. Elliot Randall’s guitar stutters into life with an affecting gawkiness utterly in opposition to the swagger of the typical American axeman, further inverting expectations by frontloading the song with a guitar solo. Where usually the solo is a kind of euphoric realisation of a song’s building energy, here it becomes (as in jazz) a place for the song to work out its melodic identity. When Fagen’s perfect chorus line emerges, it hits like a rainbow after a squall.

Peg

Another of Becker’s greatest melodic triumphs, from the album Aja, is paired with not only another virtuosic solo from session musician Jay Graydon but also lovely, featherlight funk plucking in the verses. The track has become a firm favourite for sampling by the hip-hop community: De La Soul sampled it for summer jam Eye Know, while MF Doom sampled Black Cow from the same album. Kanye West meanwhile slightly pitched up the chorus from Kid Charlemagne, off previous album The Royal Scam, for his track Champion, having won over Becker and Fagen with a handwritten letter.

The Royal Scam

You can see why hip-hop artists were so eager to pay tribute to Becker: the hip-hop samples were part of a symbiotic relationship with black music, as Becker and Fagen nodded to jazz, funk and gospel – sometimes, as on The Royal Scam, all on the same track. The uplifting gospel swell at the peak of the chorus is savage irony from the pair, in a song that laments the plight of ethnic minorities in New York.

Glamour Profession

Their ultra-smooth 1980 album Gaucho featured 42 session musicians and showcases one of the less appealing facets of soft rock: immaculate production put to the service of underwritten songs. Becker’s mania is also ironed and starched, and on this and their early 00s return to recording he’s mostly content to play rhythm licks. But Glamour Profession is excellent, skewering the shallow pretence of Los Angeles not only in the lyrics but in the very form of the song itself: a gorgeously cheesy disco strut perfect for poolside cocktails.