Gaslighting Abbie

Album: Two Against Nature (2000)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is about an affair between a married man and his mistress, who are plotting a way to drive his wife insane. The term "gaslight" means to use psychological manipulation to make a person doubt their own sanity. It comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, where a charismatic but sinister Victorian man tries to drive his wife crazy using various methods, including purposely dimming the gas lights in their home and denying that it's happening.
  • "Gaslighting Abbie" is the lead track of Two Against Nature, Steely Dan's first new album in over 19 years. In 2001, it won the Grammy for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album.
  • In a 2000 press release about Steely Dan's Two Against Nature, Fagen shared some specific details about "Gaslighting Abbie."

    "It's about a guy who along with his secret lover is essentially trying to get rid of his wife or drive her insane," he explained. "They steal her clothes, and they get 15-watt lightbulbs and put them in place of the usual lightbulbs so it looks really dark in the house. It's very menacing. It's sort of like the aural equivalent of an Alfred Hitchcock movie."

Comments: 2

  • Fdb from MelbourneWhatever it was originally about (and I suspect it wasn’t just a domestic spat, because DF lyrics are usually more than surface-level), it might as well be about Abbie Hoffman now.
  • Edward from Tucson, AzThis song is clearly about a flame, which is the a lucious invention for 3, making a tea and spiking with some dilaudin..some sort of narcotic...God the movie is a distant archaic term...all SD songs are about some dabbiling with self medications
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