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Steely Dan – Time Out of Mind
From the 1980 album, ‘Gaucho’, Steely Dan released two singles – “Hey Nineteen” and “Time Out of Mind”. The album’s recording process was mired in all sorts of bad luck and problems, which eventually lead to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to take a 20 year hiatus from each other.
“Time Out of Mind” was a thinly veiled song about heroin. The tale of a young man’s first experience with it, while listening to a self absorbed dealer giving it to him talk about religion and the feeling of “chasing the dragon’ being akin to a religious experience.
However dark the lyrics, the song did make the Top 40, peaking at #22 on the Hot 100!
