Third World Man: The Beautiful End of the Affair
How a salvaged track became the perfect eulogy for the Gaucho era, featuring Larry Carlton's weeping guitar and the final silence of the machines.
“Third World Man” exists because of a tragedy. The intended final track, “The Second Arrangement,” was accidentally erased by an assistant engineer in one of the most infamous blunders in music history. Scrambling to fill the void, Becker and Fagen dug into the archives, resurrected an older track titled “Were You Blind That Day,” rewrote the lyrics, and created the album’s closer.
It should have felt like a patch job. Instead, it feels like a benediction. It is the slow, mournful exhale after the tense, chemical night of Gaucho.
Larry Carlton’s Final Word
If Gaucho is an album defined by digital perfection and emotional distance, “Third World Man” breaks the spell with a performance of raw, bleeding humanity. Larry Carlton, the guitarist who defined the sound of The Royal Scam, returns to deliver a solo that is arguably the most emotive in the band’s catalog.
He isn’t playing scales; he is playing grief. His guitar tone is thick, sustained, and crying. It weaves through the verses, commenting on the narrator’s observations of the “Third World Man” shuffling around the grounds. In a landscape dominated by the sterile perfection of Wendel, Carlton’s guitar is a shock to the system—a reminder that there are still humans in the machine.
The Ghost in the Machine
Wendel is present, of course. The rhythm track is solid, dependable, and locked to the grid. But for the first time on the album, the technology feels subservient to the song. The digital precision provides a stable platform for the emotional weight of the lyrics and the guitar work.
The “Third World Man” of the title is a figure of pity and mystery. Is he a veteran with PTSD? A burnout? A child playing soldier? “He’s been shuffling round the grounds / Playing games he doesn’t want to play.”
It is a fitting description for Becker and Fagen themselves at the end of the Gaucho sessions. Burned out, cynical, playing a game of perfectionism that had ceased to be fun.
The Long Fade
The song ends with a long, slow fade. Carlton’s guitar continues to wail as the volume decreases. It is the sound of Steely Dan fading away. After this track, the partnership would dissolve. There would be no new music for two decades.
“Third World Man” is the comedown. The drugs have worn off. The “Glamour Profession” has lost its sheen. The “Custerdome” is closed. All that is left is the silence, and the lingering echo of a guitar solo that says what the lyrics could not.