Time & Perspective Quote by Donald Fagen

A “groove” isn’t just rhythm; it’s consent. Donald Fagen’s line frames time not as a neutral clock but as something your body can renegotiate once the band locks in. That’s the sly charm: the quote sounds casual, almost throwaway, yet it points to a hard-earned musical truth. Groove is discipline disguised as ease. It’s repetition with purpose, the kind of collective focus where the mechanics disappear and you’re left with propulsion.

Fagen’s context matters. As the brainy half of Steely Dan, he’s famous for music that’s obsessively crafted yet engineered to feel effortless. Session-player precision, studio perfectionism, jazz harmony dressed up as pop. In that world, “time flies” lands as both celebration and quiet flex: you work for hours so the listener can experience three minutes as frictionless glide. Groove becomes a technology for transportation.

The subtext is also personal: getting “a groove going” is a reprieve from self-consciousness, the moment the inner critic shuts up. Anyone who’s watched musicians chase a pocket knows it’s less about excitement than alignment - with bandmates, with the song, with your own nerves. Once it clicks, the future and past stop heckling you. You’re not managing time; you’re riding it.

Culturally, the quote reads like a small manifesto against productivity panic. The best antidote to time anxiety isn’t squeezing more in; it’s finding the cadence where attention deepens and the hours stop demanding to be “used.”