# In 1980, one studio mistake wiped a Steely Dan song from existence. Then a mysterious Facebook post happened

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1980-one-studio-mistake-wiped-a-steely-dan-song-from-existence-then-a-mysterious-facebook-post-happened/
- Published: 2026-11-14T17:00:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-14T17:20:46+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/in-1980-steely-dan-song-facebook-post/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- A tape transfer erased most of Steely Dan’s ‘The Second Arrangement’.
- A backup copy survived in Roger Nichols’s home.
- The near-complete track surfaced online in 2020.

## Summary

An assistant engineer accidentally erased most of Steely Dan’s ‘The Second Arrangement’ during the 1980 sessions for *Gaucho*. The band had been preparing the track as the album’s closing song, but the loss ended work on it and left a celebrated piece of their history largely unheard for decades.

The mistake happened while transferring tape: silence was copied over the recording, reportedly destroying more than three-quarters of the song and wasting months of work and as much as $80,000. Steely Dan tried to restart the track, then abandoned it and reworked an older song into ‘Third World Man’. A backup work tape, taken home by engineer Roger Nichols before the deletion, was found after his death; the near-complete recording was shared in 2020, after the band had performed it once in 2011.

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