me: the actual storyline of deacon blues is very convoluted, but BASICALLY its a guy thinking about how cool and tragic he would be If he were a musician. like hes predicting his own rise and fall, but its not even a prediction so much as imagination because his dream is stagnant, he is stagnant, hes not gonna do anything to change himself but he just thinks of what could be. "learn to work the saxophone/i play just what i feel" is the rise while the next line is "drink scotch whiskey all night long/and die behind the wheel" which is his tragic fall a la james dean's car crash or jeff buckley's suicide really any influential figure's highly publicized or shocking death. "they got a name for the winners in the world/i want a name when i lose" he Wants to be different!! he wants to go against the world and be Seen for it! he wants a name when he loses unlike Every Other Loser. like walter becker said, he's chasing "mythic loserdom". it's almost a meta-commentary, and we know fagen & becker werent averse to poking fun at their listeners - they said dont take me alive was inspired by the "arthur bremer types" who sent letters because they felt personally offended or defensive because of their songs. the real fringe weirdos. point is, deacon blues isnt the quintessential steely dan Protagonist, but the quintessential steely dan Listener. a guy listening to the greats and daydreaming about the kind of life he Could lead if he would just get out of his currently pretty cushy life and break a couple dozen laws and be remembered as some tragic antihero. now theyre not gonna do it, but they could. they could, in the future, learn to work the saxophone... play just what they feel... which will lead to them drinking scotch whiskey all night long and maybe even dying behind the wheel...