Hard Up Case Live

Hard Up Case - Live at Slim's April 7, 1995 (Lossless Audio file available on the Downloads page.)

Walter Becker (Guitar/Vocals)

Adam Rogers (Guitar)

Fima Ephron (Bass)

Ben Perowsky (Drums)

John Beasley (Keyboards)

Bob Sheppard (Sax)

You told me once I was your pride and joy

I guess those days are dead and gone

You must have took me for some golden boy

You didn't know what you were taking on

It was a hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

Now all the angles have been played in three's

There isn't much that I can say

I know you gave your little heart to me

I guess I threw the thing away

It was a hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

Sometimes the truth is kind of hard to find

But don't you worry I can read your mind

And you don't have to tell me to my face

You put some other joker in my place

They dealt us houses full with the queens and kings

And now they're calling out our bluff '

Cause you and me girl we had everything

But it just wasn't quite enough

Now that's a hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

You say the truth is gonna set me free

Like you might throw a dog a bone

I know you're thinking that the joke's on me

Just take a look at what you 're dragging home --

Another hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

It was a hard up case

Just another hard up case

Are the games we play stacked against us? Is it inevitable not only that we’re gonna play, but that we’re gonna lose, no matter what we’re holding when it's time to show?

The song we're sharing today in honor of Walter's birthday is the live version of Hard Up Case, from the Slim's show in San Francisco on April 7, 1995. For those of you playing the home game, this is the fifth track from that night that we’ve shared with you, the others being This Moody Bastard, The Girl Next Door to the Methadone Clinic, Cinder Annie, and Three Sisters.

I think this is a good opportunity to look at one of the metaphors/themes that pops up in both solo WB and SD, that is gaming or gambling, structured so that we glimpse behind the curtain at life's casino to catch a glimpse of just exactly why the house always seems to win. For the sake of comparison, I want to look at this track, "Hard Up Case," and the classic Steely Dan initial single,"Do It Again," taking careful note of the situation(s) in which everything comes down to a pull of the handle, a hand of poker, or a roll of the dice.

In "Do It Again," Becker and co-conspirator Donald Fagen paint a Sisyphean picture of an inexorable repetition and inexorable repetition and inexorable repetition. The song's protagonist, trapped in a perpetual motion machine of his own carefully honed vices, finds himself back in Vegas, a handle in his hand, ensnared in a relentless cycle of chance and consequence. The metaphor of the gambler, black cards carefully hidden when able, paints a portrait of a man in a casino, but also of a more universal figure, ensnared in life's big gamble. The song’s fatalistic chorus, “You go back, Jack, do it again,” might in this context be viewed as a sardonic nod to our collective propensity for repeating our mistakes, with the resigned wisdom of someone who knows the game is rigged, yet plays anyway.

In "Hard Up Case," Becker transitions from the gambling dens of "Do It Again" to the poker table of romantic entanglements. The metaphor shifts from the broader strokes of fate to the intimate dance of love and deceit. The narrator alludes to a relationship gone bust, using phrases like “played in threes” and “calling out our bluff.” It’s a more mature, nuanced view of the gambling metaphor, suggesting that in the game of love, the stakes are personal and the losses more poignant. Unlike the resigned gambler in "Do It Again," the narrator in "Hard Up Case" seems to possess a more seasoned understanding of the emotional games people play, yet finds himself ensnared in them all the same. We have, or had, a full house, "Kings and Queens," but they’re calling us on it anyway. We thought we had everything we needed, but damned if it" wasn’t quite enough."

The common thread in both songs is the inescapability of cyclical patterns, whether in the throw of the dice or the turn of a lover’s card. With his usual acerbic wit, Becker seems to suggest that we are all players in a game, or maybe a series of games, where the rules are opaque and the outcomes are predetermined. In "Do It Again," the cycle is overt and existential, while in "Hard Up Case," it is subtle and relational. But in both, there’s a sense of deja vu, a feeling that no matter how savvy we think we are, we’re just participants in a grander scheme we scarcely understand, clinging on while the wheel spins.

In his solo work and with Steely Dan, Walter crafts narratives that resonate with anyone who’s ever felt like they’re spinning the wheel of fortune, seeing an array of numbers and colors, only to land on the same space repeatedly. His use of gambling metaphors in "Do It Again" and "Hard Up Case" is not just a clever lyrical device but a mirror reflecting our own follies and foibles in the game of life and love. With a mix of erudition, eloquence, and a biting sense of humor, he points out just how bad it feels when we don’t get dealt the card we need on the flop, the turn, or the river, when we pull the handle but the little dials never seem to land on "three bars, three cherries, three lemons, or three pigs." One can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, recognizing something perhaps painfully familiar in the haplessness of our narrative protagonists. In the end, we are left with the wry acknowledgment that in the casino of life, there’s “No original sin…the house always wins.” -Matt