Home At Last

This song is based on the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer. The hero, Ulysses, is trying to get home across the ocean after the Trojan War, but the gods keep making it difficult: Though the danger on the rocks is surely past Still I remain tied to the mast These lyrics refer to an incident where Ulysses had all his crew block their ears so they wouldn't hear the Sirens' song and crash the boat on the rocks, but Ulysses kept his ears open and had his crew tie him to the mast so he wouldn't dive off the boat. Could it be that I have found my home at last? Home at last? Ulysses is ever hopeful he'll get back to his wife and son.

Listen for Bernard Purdie's drumming here; that beat is so distinctive that it's called the "Purdie Shuffle." Other musicians to play on this track were: Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Synthesizer: Donald Fagen Guitar Solo: Walter Becker Backing Vocals: Timothy B. Schmit Guitar: Larry Carlton Bass: Chuck Rainey Piano, Vibraphone: Victor Feldman

Ken Tucker writes in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll: "What Aja offered was just about the opposite of the quirky, opaque little pop tunes with which Becker and Fagen had commenced their career, and the album allowed lots of pop fans to feel they'd penetrated the cool precincts of jazz at exactly the moment when 'cool' was making a comeback via disco. For the first time, really, a massive audience had gotten a bead on Steely Dan, and millions liked what they'd deduced: hitmakers behaving like cult artists." Aja has also been the subject of an episode of Eagle Rock Entertainment's TV series Classic Albums.