"Snowbound" is the fourth track from Donald Fagen's second solo album ''

Kamakiriad ''Kamakiriad'' is the second solo album by Steely Dan artist Donald Fagen, released in 1993. It was his first collaboration with Steely Dan partner Walter Becker since 1986, on Rosie Vela's album '' Zazu''. Becker played guitar and bass and pr ...

''.

Background

"Snowbound" continues the concept story as laid out in ''Kamakiriad'', a journey in a dream car set in a futuristic time. The song focuses on a city with chronically bad weather, and poor icy road conditions. The narrator of the song gets stuck in the city, yet doesn't focus on the poor conditions, but instead begins to relish a decadent lifestyle of living carefree within the city.

Music video

The video is a combination of stop motion and real time footage, produced by

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers ...

. Real time footage of musician's and actor's heads was superimposed onto models. These models were then set into a modeled futuristic city with atmospheric effects added in post production. The music video was also featured on Beavis and Butt-Head, in the short ''Madame Blavatsky''.

Story

The story depicted in the video centers on worker drones living and working in a cluttered, gray city, and living in an oppressive red haze. Juxtaposed onto the harsh drabness of their robotically efficient existence is a soft falling snow. Donald Fagen's face is visible throughout much of the video as an overlord like figure, watching each drone's every move. The video itself spotlights one particular man drone and woman drone, however the centerpiece of the video occurs when an inefficient, napping drone gets zapped with electricity by Donald Fagen from his watch point above the city. The zapped drone becomes angry and drives up to the watch point to fight Fagen resulting in his being tossed out of the watch point. The drone then efficiently steps into Fagen's position, becoming the new overlord. The video ends with the man and woman drones going together into the same house at the end of the day. {{Authority control 1993 singles 1993 songs Songs written by Donald Fagen Songs written by Walter Becker Stop-motion animated music videos Warner Records singles