song: Glamour Profession
artist: Steely Dan
album: Gaucho (1980)
writers: Walter Becker & Donald Fagen

vocal, lead: Donald Fagen
vocals, backing: Lesley Miller, Valerie Simpson, Frank Floyd, Zack Sanders
electric guitar, rhythm: Steve Khan
electric guitar, solo: Walter Becker (or Steve Khan?)
electric bass: Anthony Jackson
bass synthesizer: Donald Fagen
drum machine: “Wendel”
drum fill overdubs: Steve Gadd
acoustic piano: Rob Mounsey

This is a note-for-note transcription of the listed instruments on “Glamour Profession”. This transcription is based partly on the stereo tracks, now available separately, which has allowed me to hear the each of those instruments clearly. Enjoy!

Also check out this wonderful interview with bassist Anthony Jackson and Steve Gadd talking about the recording sessions for this song.

Be sure to check out the great instructional video (by Homespun) in which Donald Fagen himself breaks down songs like, “Peg”, “Josie”, “Chain Lightning”, and more: Get it here on their website.

Ben Sidran: The song in question is the “Glamour Profession” from the album “Gaucho”. What’s that song about?
Donald Fagen: That song is about a cocaine dealer who finds himself getting some kind of power by selling drugs to celebrities and hanging around with them, being in their scene. And, I think, in the first verse, there’s a basketball player who meets him in the parking lot, and he gives him some, and then there’s some various other decadent monied people that he deals with. And, I think, the idea of it is the kind of power that, I think, someone like that feels. It’s sort of the only way that someone on that social level in a way can have power: It’s by being associated with power. And that’s basically what the song is about.
Ben Sidran: It’s about power?
Donald Fagen: It’s about power, yeah.

(source: interview on «Sidran on Record», on NPR radio, 1988)