Steely Dan - The Lost Gaucho and Outtakes

Steely Dan
The Lost Gaucho and Outtakes
Studio outtakes, very good quality
mp3 @ 320

For many years, this was considered the holy grail of Steely Dan bootlegs, as it features a complete alternative Gaucho album including several unreleased songs from the Gaucho sessions that were not included on the eventual album. As is known by most SD fans, Becker and Fagen had to endure various misfortunes during the long and grueling process of the making of Gaucho, which caused numerous delays in its release. Becker was hit by a car, one of their favorite new tracks "The Second Arrangement" was accidentally erased by an assistant recording engineer, and there was a dispute over which record company had the rights to their forthcoming album. MCA won the contract dispute (although Fagen and Becker had already signed to a new label, WB) but then decided to increase the album's list price to one dollar more than all other albums at that time. Donald and Walter tried unsuccessfully to fight the price increase. Through all this, Fagen and Becker grew more and more disenchanted, and eventually scrapped much of what had been recorded previously, including several entire songs. Gaucho was eventually released in November, 1980. But the ordeal, poitics, and aftermath of the making and remaking of Gaucho may have lead to Donald & Walter's decision to call it quits after this album. Nonetheless, these outtakes represent all that is left from these sessions and the last unreleased songs from Steely Dan.
This outtake collection, consists of the 'Lost' Gaucho album (CD1), which is a complete album vastly different to what was released, as well as a collection of other miscellaneous outtakes, demos, and alternate versions from these sessions (CD2). Of the 8 songs included on the 'lost' edition, only three of these were tracks that appeared on the official album, in somewhat different form. 'Were You Blind That Day' was an early rendition of a song with different lyrics that finally appeared as 'Third World Man' on the released Gaucho. 'Time Out Of Mind' on the lost version is simpler, missing the embellishments added on the Gaucho version. And the title track here is just an instrumental. The rest of the tracks are original unreleased Steely Dan songs prepared for Gaucho, but not used. These include 'Kind Spirit', 'The Bear', 'The Second Arrangement', 'Talkin’ About My Home' and 'Kulee Baba', and have never been released in any form. Earlier versions of these songs circulated somewhat in poorer quality (but were difficult to find) until around 2002 when high quality copies of the sessions emerged. Although these sessions have become fairly widely availble in the last few years, I also wanted to include them here as well, for completeness.

CD1: The Lost Gaucho
01 Kind Spirit
02 Were You Blind That Day
03 The Bear
04 The 2nd Arrangement
05 Talkin' About My Home
06 Time Out Of Mind
07 Kulee Baba
08 Gaucho (instr.)

CD2: Various Demos, Outtakes, & Alternate Versions
01 Gaucho
02 The Second Arrangement
03 Glamour Profession
04 Babylon Sisters
05 My Rival
06 Gaucho (piano demo)
07 Babylon Sisters
08 The Second Arrangement
09 Talkin' About My Home
10 I Can't Write Home About You
11 Kulee Baba

Link to this previous version of these tracks no longer available. However...

Now Available! - Upgraded and enhanced version of these files (phase-corrected, EQ, and audio clean-up) available in both lossless and mp3 versions - check here