"Snowbound" is the fourth track from Donald Fagen

Donald Fagen

Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....

's second solo album Kamakiriad

Kamakiriad

Kamakiriad is the second solo album by Steely Dan singer Donald Fagen, released in 1993. It was his first collaboration since 1980 with Steely Dan partner Walter Becker, who produced the album. The album is a futuristic optimistic 8 song-cycle about the journey of the narrator in his high-tech car,...

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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

Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...

. 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.

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 Fagen being tossed out of the watch point. The drone then efficiently steps into Fagen's position, becomes the new overlord. The video ends with the man and woman drones going together into the same house at the end of the day.