Peg (1978) 5/20/20

Behind Today's “Great Song of the '70s” is a story worthy of The National Enquirer!

In 1932, acclaimed Broadway actress Peg Entwistle became even more famous for her death: She jumped off the “Hollywoodland” sign before her first movie was ever released.

Some say it was because the studio hated her performance, but others said it was because she was about to be exposed as a porn actress.

Her suicide note (published in all the papers) was not specific: “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” Forty-Six years later, Steely Dan released a song from their platinum-selling album, “Aja” that may or may not have been about her. The group's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen never confirmed or denied it, but the lyrics to “Peg” are about an aspiring actress who is being promised a “big break,” and back in those days, there were all sorts of tales of women who were—let's say--subjected to all forms of abuse and debauchery in the movie business. The lyrics are not blatant, but if you read between the lines.... Well, anyway, the song itself is sort of a Jazz/Rock hybrid... featuring background vocals by Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, and a fantastic guitar solo by Jay Gradon—the SEVENTH guitarist called in to attempt it. Obviously Becker and Fagen were perfectionists. “Peg” hit #7 on the Canadian Chart, and in the US, it peaked at #11 on Billboard's Hot 100. Pitchfork Magazine listed it as one of the “Top 100 songs of the '70s,” and the TV news magazine “Entertainment Tonight” used it for their paparazzi segment from 1981-85. From 1978, “Peg:” a “Great Song of the '70s, straight from the tabloids of the '30s!

Maybe.