In his infamous LA Weekly piece “Steely Dan fans are [A-holes],” Nicholas Pell, a self-proclaimed Danfan, explains, “We don’t hang out in the parking lot and drop acid before a show. We gather over fair trade coffee and artisan beers at the local brew pub to discuss interpretations of song lyrics.”

It’s a grand Dan tradition now for 46 years, minus, of course, those sad, lost decades when they met to discuss song interpretations with no show to go to and then just went home, presumably, to their lonely, cynical lives.

Among the reasons Steely Dan songs endure so brilliantly, besides the ever-exquisite musicianship, is the extent to which the lyrics are little mysteries to figure out, or puzzle over endlessly. Taking a page perhaps from Bob Dylan, the band’s principal’s, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, rarely made themselves available to help with such a process.

Last September, there was a major disruption in the Steely Dan universe with the passing of Mr. Becker, the bassist and guitarist, at 67. Mr. Fagen was quick to say that Steely Dan would carry on and, for the first time, on Monday at Heinz Hall, we’ll see the Dan as it is — just Mr. Fagen, touring with ringers, as the band had been doing since its unexpected return to the road in 1993.

The singer-keyboardist is not feeling particularly chatty at the moment, so to prepare for the show, let’s delve into five essential Steely Dan songs that are turning up on recent set lists, with an assist from the new book, “Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion,” compiled by Barney Hoskyns.

“Kid Charlemagne”

Steely Dan’s storytelling was never better than on the lead track of fifth album “Royal Scam,” which chronicles the shifting wave of the ’70s drug scene with the fall of famed San Francisco LSD chemist Owsley Stanley.

In 1976, the identity wasn’t immediately apparent to Melody Maker, which asked the duo if it was about Timothy Leary or Charles Manson:

Mr. Fagen: “You’re on the right track. I think it would probably be about a person who’s less of a celebrity than those people.”

Mr. Becker: “Well, there is a particular individual, whom we naturally can’t name … who hovered over the creation of the song like a sword of Damocles, like Hamlet’s father. Basically, it’s a chef.”

The solo, played by jazz master Larry Carlton, placed it on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest guitar songs (No. 80), a list, by the way, that did not include Elliott Randall’s ridiculous work on “Reelin’ in the Years.”

In a 2012 interview with Songfacts,” Mr. Fagen talked about how when the original band evaporated and duo started bringing in sessions players, they would write out the charts to keep the costs down on the pricey session players. He described Carlton as a “virtuoso” who can “get around his instrument better than any studio guitarist.”

“The middle solo,” he added, “he did in two takes and we used both parts. The last solo was straight improvisation.”

Years later, Kanye West asked for permission to sample “Kid Charlemagne” for his song “Champion.” The duo didn’t love the treatment and said no, but after Kanye made a more personal plea, they relented.

“Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”

The lead track on third album “Pretzel Logic” and the biggest hit of Steely Dan’s career, charting at No. 4 in 1974, is a sly, persistent come-on that borrows freely from the jazz canon.

Rikki is said to be Rikki Ducornet, the wife of a professor at Bard College, whom he met at a college party when she was pregnant.

It’s been frequently noted that the opening lifts Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father.” In a 2011 interview, Mr. Fagen told All About Jazz, “There was never a conscious thought about picking up Horace Silver’s intro... as for the piano line, I think I had heard it on an old Sergio Mendes album. Maybe that where Horace heard it, too [laughs].”

In its “Pretzel Logic” review, Rolling Stone noted, “In a short time, Steely Dan has turned into one of the best American bands, and surely one of the most original. Their only problem is the lack of a visual identity to go with their musical one — as pop personalities, they’re practically anonymous.”

It dovetails with a comment Mr. Fagen made to New Musical Express in 1975 about the band feeling itself breaking off the pop-rock orbit.

“We’re basically all jazz fans and most of the records we listen to are jazz -- the people who made them are dead or they were recorded so long ago that they’ve been forgotten. We’re definitely pretty cold at the moment. We’ve more or less abandoned hope of being one of the big important rock ‘n’ roll groups, simply because our music is somehow a little too cheesy at times and turns off the rock intelligentsia for the most part, and at other times it’s too bizarre to be appreciated by anybody.”

“Aja”

The eight-minute title track of the exquisite 1977 album is the longest, most ambitious entry in Steely Dan’s catalog.

In a 1999 Classic Albums documentary, Fagen described it as being about the “tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman.” It was inspired by a relative of someone he knew doing just that with a Korean woman named Aja.

It is the last Steely Dan song to feature another founding member of the group, guitarist Denny Dias, and the first to employ sax legend Wayne Shorter and drummer Steve Gadd, who had played on Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” two years prior.

Mr. Becker told Sounds in 1977, “We’d gotten this drummer we didn’t know but had heard a lot about, named Steve Gadd — he was flown in from New York. We had a chart for the tune and it was like eight pages long — three music stands in front of every musician.” For some instruments, like the keyboards, the charts were very specific. For the drums, he said, “he really had to outdo himself on that one.”

More broadly, he added, “We never ask anybody to consciously adapt to our style. In fact, a lot of musicians come here, and I don’t think they have any idea what our style is — don’t know or care.”

“Hey Nineteen”

Although he sounds older, Donald Fagen was only 32 when he sang this 1980 “Gaucho” that might be Steely Dan’s last great hit. The breezy jazz tune portrays that moment when you hit the generation gap with teenagers, in this case one who may not have heard of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.

In 1981, in relation to the song, they were asked by Rolling Stone, if maybe they were mellowing:

Mr. Fagen: “We could be losing our sense of fantasy as we age. Or confusing it with our sense of reality.”

Mr. Becker: “...along with the rest of the world. But mellowing? I would hope not. I think we’ve maintained a healthy level of misanthropy.”

Talking to New York Magazine in 2006, Mr. Fagen addressed the relationship between Steely Dan and a much-derided radio genre: “We’re actually accused of starting smooth jazz, which I don’t think is exactly true. A lot of the effects we got were intended to be comic, like ‘Hey Nineteen.’ We were in our 30s and still saddled with these enormous sex drives and faced with the problem that you can no longer talk to a 19-year-old girl because the culture has changed. That’s set against an extremely polite little groove. And then the chorus is set to jazz chords and when you play them on electronic instruments there’s a flattening effect. To me, it’s very funny. Other people think it’s nauseating.”

“My Old School”

Hard to believe this infectious single from second album “Countdown to Ecstasy” only went to No. 63 in 1973.

It’s another vivid piece of storytelling, about a May 1969 drug raid at Bard College in which Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker were both arrested. “Daddy Gee” refers to the assistant DA, G. Gordon Liddy, who was later convicted in the Watergate scandal.

A 1974 New Musical Express story notes that Liddy and the sheriff “would deputize every townie bowling at the 9-G Lanes and carry off 10 to 20 percent of the student body.”

Mr. Becker told Melody Maker in 1976, “[Bard] was one of your basic beatnik colleges they have in America. There’s a couple of them strategically situated throughout the country. Everybody there, just about, was a beatnik, except for the people who were in the religion department.”

The Rolling Stone review, perhaps not appreciating the sparkle of their China, said of the album, “Though their playing is hardly unique and their singing is occasionally hampered by patently ridiculous lyrics, they exhibit a control of the basic rock format that is refreshing and that bodes well for the group’s long-term success.”

Ya think?

As for that promise of not going back to Annandale until California tumbles into the sea, it lasted until 1985 when Mr. Fagen returned to accept an honorary doctorate.

Asked by Entertainment Weekly in 2006 what made him reconsider, he pondered the question and replied, “Well, you know. I’m not one to hold a grudge.”

First Published: October 5, 2018, 1:00 p.m.