Peg

The harmony of 'Peg' applies jazz theory systematically to a pop structure. Major 7th chords replace triads at nearly every landing point, and the ii–V–I motion in the chorus is lifted directly from bebop practice. The result sits in a register that pop songs rarely occupied in 1977 — richer than rock, more rhythmically direct than jazz — which is part of why the Aja material still sounds distinct from its contemporaries.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote 'Peg' for the Aja sessions, continuing their method of obsessive refinement in which songs were rewritten and rearranged until every element met their standard. The lyric is characteristically oblique — a portrait of someone chasing celebrity — but the compositional energy went primarily into the arrangement and the groove, which had to support an extended guitar feature without losing momentum.

'Peg' channels Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's characteristic mix of jazz harmony and pop immediacy into a song that sounds effortless but took months to realize. Jay Graydon's guitar solo — constructed from dozens of takes after several other guitarists were turned away — became one of the most discussed guitar moments of the decade. The track charted as a single from Aja, the 1977 album that won the Grammy for Album of the Year.