(This post originally appeared at NA Confidential in 2017. Photo credit: Library of Congress, via PBS.)
For the past four decades, any mention of “Black Friday” immediately cues the song by Steely Dan, which promptly starts playing in my head, except that it doesn’t ever seem to end there.
That’s because back in 1975, most of us were listening to albums, and if you heard these songs often enough, it becomes impossible to stop the internal playback mechanism from repeating their long established running order.
“Black Friday” is the first song on the album Katy Lied. It leads directly to “Bad Sneakers,” then “Rose Darling” — and if something doesn’t occur to interrupt the stream, it only ends with “Throw Back the Little Ones” and the album’s conclusion.
In historical terms, “Black Friday” has tended to denote disasters.
It was a financial crisis during the presidency of U.S. Grant, occurring on Sept. 24, 1869, after an attempt was made to corner the gold market following the Civil War. In fact, Steely Dan’s song refers to this original Black Friday.
Black Friday has been used to denote other historic dates, too. A quick search confirms a short list of at least 25 instances of Black Friday: a storm...
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