Steely Dan - Kid Charlemagne - Lyrics

"While the music played, you worked by candlelight
Those San Francisco nights
You were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl."

The Kid, as I will call him, works in his lab, trying to make a new version of LSD, while his club rocks out a few doors or floors away. He is already a popular drug chemist, but this time, he has come up with something new and great.

"You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around
(Did you feel like Jesus?)
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes?"

He starts selling his new drug, and it is revolutionary. Everyone is paying to get its high. Everyone loves him, as they trip in their psychedelic trance and hallucinations. He becomes the leader of a new sub-culture.

"On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen-clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home."

The big drug dealers water down their LSD, but the Kid makes a great pure drug. The Kid gets "rich," by their standards. But the Kid is still just a large fish in a very small pond. His house is only a bus.

"Every A-Frame had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You'd go to L.A. on a dare and you'd go it alone
(Could you live forever?)
Could you see the day?
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away?"

At this point, the Kid is at the top of his world. And he decides to go from SF to Los Angeles to take his business up a notch. Will he make it? Or will he fail?

"(Get along, get along, Kid Charlemagne)
(Get along, Kid Charlemagne)."

What could this chant mean? Is he not getting along? Is it just encouragement to keep getting along? Is the Kid a nice guy? The TONE this "choir" give me is one of hopefulness.

"Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low-rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those day-glo freaks who used to paint the face."

The Kid fails. He had a market in San Francisco, but he finds no market for his LSD in LA. Many of the losers who were buying his product, who partied on LSD with their faces painted in florescent colors, have died from the drug.

"They've joined the human race
Some things will never change
(Son, you were mistaken)
You are obsolete
Look at all the white men on the street."

Many died from the drug, but those who survived stopped using it. The Kid was wrong. He would not last forever. His business is over. His white customers are back at work.

"Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test-tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are."

The Kid and his friends abandon their place of business and take off in their car. His illegal business has been discovered.

"(Careful what you carry)
'Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw in their eyes."

The Kid has to be careful what he has in his car, because the police know who he is; the Kid just hasn't been caught. Yet.

And so the Kid needs to take this advice:
"(Get along, get along, Kid Charlemagne)
(Get along, Kid Charlemagne)."

END