Ed Motta pays tribute to Walter Becker with 43-song Steely Dan playlist

“I have never found anything as perfect as Steely Dan.”

Earlier this week, Steely Dan co-founder, guitarist and bassist Walter Becker passed away aged 67, prompting a wave of tributes from all corners of the music industry.

Read next: Inside Ed Motta’s 30,000-strong record collection

There are few however who lived the Steely Dan spirit quite like Brazilian MPB legend and record collector Ed Motta. “Steely Dan is my mania”, Motta told us in an interview last year, fanning six copies of Aja in his hands. “I love everything they produce. For me they are the top of the hill.”

Following the news of Becker’s passing, we asked Motta whether he would like to put together a tribute to his idol. Sure enough, just a few minutes later a 43-song playlist landed in our inbox, accompanied by a moving homage. From the impact on his own musical trajectory to a broader sympathy for the era Steely Dan represents, you can read Motta’s tribute and listen to the playlist below.

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To explain the importance of Steely Dan in my life, I would need to write my autobiography and every chapter would mention their unique art. The first time I listened to them, they weren’t my cup of tea at all. In the early ’80s I was into hard rock, blues and soul/funk, basically music that felt more raw, more spontaneous. I felt Steely Dan was too clean, too aseptic.

In the early ’90s I got really into jazz and started to learn piano. I will never forget the day I heard ‘Babylon Sisters’ for the first time, with the right attitude. It changed my life forever.

When I started listening to it properly, my biggest love and main interests in their music were the composition, clever chord changes, sublime studio sound, and intelligent solos. It was years later before I started to pay attention to the great and unusual lyrics that have strong references to things I also love, like film noir, science fiction, etc.

Music is my sanctuary, the meaning of my life, and I have never found anything as perfect as Steely Dan. I have many records in my collection but nothing comes close to their perfection.

I listen to their music, including solo albums, every week, and each time I find something new. It’s really the soundtrack to my life.

Nowadays music is sort of the opposite of what Steely Dan was proposing. To play an instrument and to write a decent song with well constructed melodies, and chord changes, seems like something from the distant past. The thing that I most feel deeply sad about when someone from Walter Becker’s generation dies is that art, in the way I understand and love it, is also dying.

Music is something beautiful and I love music. I love Steely Dan.

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Tracklist:

1) Babylon Sisters
2) I Got The News
3) Green Earrings
4) Razor Boy
5) Rose Darling
6) Pretzel Logic
7) Fire In The Hole
8) Pixeleen
9) Deacon Blues
10) Glamour Profession
11) Almost Gothic
12) Throw Back The Little Ones
13) Night By Night
14) Kings
15) Third World Man
16) Kid Charlemagne
17) Peg
18) King Of The World
19) Home At Last
20) With A Gun
21) Doctor Wu
22) The Fez
23) Hey Nineteen
24) Aja
25) Only A Fool Would Say That
26) Haitian Divorce
27) Any Major Dude Will Tell You
28) The Boston Rag
29) Here At The Western World
30) Bad Sneakers
31) West Of Hollywood
32) The Caves Of Altamira
33) My Rival
34) Black Cow
35) Turn That Heartbeat Over Again
36) Any World (That I’m Welcome To)
37) Sign In Stranger
38) Your Gold Teeth
39) Josie
40) Don’t Take Me Alive
41) Parker’s Band
42) Your Gold Teeth II
43) Gaucho