Kid Charlemagne

"Kid Charlemagne"
The cover of the "Kid Charlemagne" single features Fagen (top) and Becker (bottom)
Single by Steely Dan
from the album The Royal Scam
B-side	"Green Earrings"
Released	June 1976 [1]
Genre	Jazz fusion funk rock
Length	4:38 (album version) 3:56 (single version)
Label	ABC
Songwriter(s)	Walter Becker Donald Fagen
Producer(s)	Gary Katz
Steely Dan singles chronology
"Bad Sneakers" (1975) "Kid Charlemagne" (1976) "The Fez" (1976)
Official audio
"Kid Charlemagne" on YouTube

"Kid Charlemagne" is a song by American rock band Steely Dan, released in 1976 as the opening track on their album The Royal Scam. An edited version was released as a single, reaching number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[2] Larry Carlton's guitar solo on the song was ranked #80 in a 2008 list of the 100 greatest guitar solos by Rolling Stone.^[3]

Lyrics

Writers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have stated that the lyrics of "Kid Charlemagne" were loosely inspired by the rise and fall of the San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley, augmented with other images of the counterculture of the 1960s:^[4]

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home

The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley's LSD was famed for its purity. The "Technicolor motor home" of the third line is likely a reference to Furthur, the Merry Pranksters' modified school bus; Stanley supplied them with LSD.^[5][6]

The final verse describes Stanley’s 1967 arrest after his car reportedly ran out of gas:^[7]

Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are

Guitar solo

Larry Carlton's guitar solo starts at 2:18 into the song and ends at 3:08. Pete Prown and HP Newquist described it as consisting of "twisted single-note phrases, bends, and vibrant melody lines"; they called it and Carlton's "joyous, off-the-cuff break" during the song's fade-out "breathtaking."^[8] According to Rolling Stone, which ranked "Kid Charlemagne" at #80 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs": "In the late seventies, Steely Dan made records by using a revolving crew of great session musicians through take after take, which yielded endless jaw-dropping guitar solos. Larry Carlton's multi-sectioned, cosmic-jazz lead in this cut may be the best of all: It's so complex it's a song in its own right."^[9] In 2022, Far Out Magazine listed it as the fourth-greatest guitar solo on a Steely Dan song, calling Carlton's playing "intense, fluid, and frequently on the brink of spinning out of control".^[10] Nick Hornby, in Songbook, spoke of the solo's "extraordinary and dexterous exuberance", though he questioned its relationship with the "dry ironies of the song's lyrics".^[11]

“It’s my claim to fame,” Carlton told Guitar World in 1981. “I did maybe two hours worth of solos that we didn’t keep. Then I played the first half of the intro, which they loved, so they kept that. I punched in for the second half. So it was done in two parts and the solo that fades out in the end was done in one pass.”^{[12][unreliable source?]}

Carlton's use of tapping in the solo was cited by Adrian Belew as an early example of what he and Rob Fetters were trying to accomplish at the time when Eddie Van Halen was experimenting with the technique.^[13]

Carlton called his solo on "Kid Charlemagne" the high point of his career at the time, saying, "I can't think of anything else that I still like to listen to as strongly as that."^{[citation needed]}

In 2021 Vulfpeck guitarist Cory Wong described the solo as his "favorite guitar solo of all time".^[14]

Reception

Cash Box said that "the melody and arrangement are complicated, but accessible" and "every note is necessary."^[15]

Personnel

• Donald Fagen – lead vocals, organ
• Larry Carlton – electric lead guitar
• Walter Becker – electric rhythm guitar
• Don Grolnick – Fender Rhodes electric piano
• Paul Griffin – Hohner Clavinet
• Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
• Bernard Purdie – drums
• Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, Venetta Fields, Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews – backing vocals

Other appearances

• American rapper Kanye West sampled "Kid Charlemagne" on the song "Champion" from his 2007 album Graduation. Becker and Fagen initially refused West's request to use the song, but changed their minds after receiving a letter from West explaining the song's importance to him.^[16]

References

1. "Steely Dan singles".
2. Steely Dan USA chart history, Billboard.com. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
3. "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 30, 2008. Retrieved 2017-05-05.. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
4. Complete transcript of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker in a BBC-Online Chat Archived 2009-04-13 at the Wayback Machine, March 4, 2000
5. Greenfield, Robert (2011-03-14). "Owsley Stanley: The King of LSD". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2016-05-08.
6. Pershan, Caleb (2015-07-20). "'Kid Charlemagne': A Close Reading Of Steely Dan's Ode To Haight Street's LSD King". SFist. Archived from the original on 2016-03-17. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
7. Medium. "The Psychedelic Origins of Steely Dan’s ‘Kid Charlemagne" by Frank Mastropolo. January 15, 2021.
8. Prown, Pete; Newquist, HP (1997). Legends of Rock Guitar. Hal Leonard. p. 1917. ISBN 9781476850931.
9. "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 30, 2008. Retrieved 2017-05-05.. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
10. Golson, Tyler (February 2, 2022). "The six greatest Steely Dan guitar solos". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved July 25, 2022.
11. Hornby, Nick (2003). Songbook. Penguin. p. 55. ISBN 9781573223560.
12. Medium. "The Psychedelic Origins of Steely Dan’s ‘Kid Charlemagne" by Frank Mastropolo. January 15, 2021.
13. Owen, Matt (December 20, 2021). "Adrian Belew on how Eddie Van Halen advanced guitar playing 'to the next level'". Guitar World. Retrieved July 25, 2022.
14. "Larry Carlton Tells the Story Behind "Kid Charlemagne" | Wong Notes Podcast". YouTube. 2 June 2021.
15. "CashBox Singles Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. June 12, 1976. p. 16. Retrieved 2021-12-11.
16. Scarano, Ross (16 October 2012). "Interview: Steely Dan's Donald Fagen Talks New Album, Reclaiming the Ghetto, and Getting a Letter From Kanye". complex.com. Retrieved 16 October 2017.