"Reelin' In the Years" is a song by jazz rock band Steely Dan

Steely Dan

Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...

, released as the sixth track on their 1972

1972 in music

-Events:*January 17 – Highway 51 South in Memphis, Tennessee is renamed "Elvis Presley Boulevard"*January 20 – The début of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at The Dome, Brighton, is halted by technical difficulties,...

 album, Can't Buy a Thrill

Can't Buy a Thrill

Can't Buy a Thrill is the first album by Steely Dan. Originally released in 1972, the album was a huge success. It went gold, and then platinum, peaking at #17 on the charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 238 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time...

.

The song was written by Donald Fagen

Donald Fagen

Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....

 and Walter Becker

Walter Becker

Walter Carl Becker is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, bassist and a co-writer of Steely Dan.-Career:...

 and features Fagen on vocals. The song was also a #11 hit on the Pop singles chart in 1973. In March 2005, Q magazine

Q (magazine)

Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...

placed the song at number 95 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

 guitarist Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

 has reportedly said that Elliott Randall

Elliott Randall

Elliott Randall is an American guitarist, most known for being a session musician with popular artists. Randall has played the well-known guitar solos from Steely Dan's hit "Reelin' in the Years" and Fame. Legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has reputedly said that Randall's solo on...

's guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

 on "Reelin' In the Years" is his favorite solo of all time. That solo was also ranked the 40th best guitar solo of all time by the readers of Guitar World

Guitar World

Guitar World is a monthly music magazine devoted to guitarists. It contains original interviews, album and gear reviews and guitar and bass tablature of approximately five songs each month. The magazine is published 13 times per year...

magazine. On the other hand, Fagen himself referred to the song as "dumb but effective" in Rolling Stone magazine, with Becker chiming in, "It's not fun." The 4-channel Quadrophonic mix of the recording has extra lead guitar fills not heard in the more common 2-channel Stereo

STEREO

STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...

 version.

The song is featured in Rob Zombie's 2005 movie, The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects is a 2005 American horror film written and directed by Rob Zombie, and the sequel to his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses. The film is about the family of psychopathic killers from the previous film now on the run...

. It was also used as the theme music for the television series Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive

Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive

Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive is a British television show, first aired on BBC Three in July 2006. Devised by Paul Duddridge, it concerns the making of a comedy panel game show called Annually Retentive, themed around historical events, and hosted by Welsh comedian Rob Brydon...

, which aired on BBC Three in the UK. "Reelin' In the Years" is used in the 1999 movie For Love of the Game

For Love of the Game (film)

For Love of the Game is a 1999 American drama sports film based on the novel of the same title by Michael Shaara...

. It is also used as the theme song to the RTE television show of the same name

Reeling In The Years

Reeling in the Years is a historical documentary series broadcast in Ireland by RTÉ. Each episode, approximately 25 minutes long, looks back at the news and events of a particular year, from 1962 to 2009. The programme uses news archive footage, along with subtitles as the means of narration, to...

which is a historical Irish documentary covering one year per episode.