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" I think that there's the self-imposed pressure to come up with something that's good. For guys like us, that's much more important than any external pressure could really be. "

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" I'm glad we turned into a big-time touring band later in life. In fact, it's almost like we planned it out that way. "

Walter Becker

Planned

Life

Fact

" In the '70s, my playing was completely untutored, but it sounded good to me, and I tried to find ways to make those very simple things work in more ambitious contexts. "

Walter Becker

Good

Work

" When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's going to happen when you have a difference of opinion. Most attempts at collaboration never survive the negotiation. Merely being agreeable is not enough. "

" When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically. "

" It was the 'Gaucho' album that finished us off. We had pursued an idea beyond the point where it was practical. That album took about two years, and we were working on it all of that time - all these endless tracking sessions involving different musicians. It took forever, and it was a very painful process. "

" The protagonist in 'Deacon Blues' is a triple-L loser - an L-L-L Loser. It's not so much about a guy who achieves his dream but about a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life. "

" If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I owe that to my public. "

Walter Becker

Strange

Way

" There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does it have to have any specific words?' And they said, 'No, it just has to be about FM radio.' It took a day or two to write. "

" We are constantly competing with the monsters from the id. "

Walter Becker

Constantly

Competing

" I don't particularly like L.A. "

Walter Becker

Particularly

" We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz. "

" I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion. "

" If it feels like we're re-creating something rather than creating something, we don't do it. "

Walter Becker

Something

Rather

" We try to write things that work on a variety of levels at the same time: A sleek exterior with a turbulent lyric. "

" It's great fun to play with a really good band. "

" It seemed like the more complex the music we were playing, the less able we were to guarantee its consistency. "

" It's interesting how some songs really lend themselves to performance in a big public venue and performance by a band and so on, and so they're even more successful in that context than they were on the record. "

" I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends. "

" ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful. "

Walter Becker

Unsuccessful

Material

" What gets people into trouble with records now is that they want to build something up without substantial musical ideas. Without that as a foundation, you can add all the layers of sound you want - it's still going to sound like a mess. "

" With any relationship that goes on and is productive over a long period, there have to be some sort of interlocking qualities in those personalities that make it possible to survive. "

" If you're playing in a room that holds 15,000 people, it's just a question of how bad the room acoustics are and in what way they're bad. "

" Let's face it, us '60s folks had pretty high expectations. "

Walter Becker

High

Expectations

" Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are. "

" We opened for the Kinks, the Beach Boys, the Guess Who, Chuck Berry, Sha Na Na. We opened for Cheech and Chong - I opened for Cheech, and Don opened for Chong. "

" 'Gaucho' was a struggle for us for a lot of reasons, and in the end, we just sort of survived it. "

" I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop. "

" I learned a lot from the various artists I produced. Either you see them doing something that you do want to do it, or you see them doing something the way you don't want to do it. "

" I don't think that the Grammys are in any way a just way of grading music. "

" I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different. "