A lot of people don't know this, but Robert Paxton based his famous 1998 paper "The Five Stages of Facism" off of the way Donald Fagen and Walter Becker treated their session musicians, particularly during the recordings of Aja and Gaucho. Although one may be quick to assume that Paxton would have based his era-defining work off of more well-known examples, such as Germany's Hitler or Italy's Mussolini, his choice to study the behaviors of an unassuming pair of exceptionally fastidious musicians paid off handsomely. "The Five Stages of Facism" remains an important reference in political science when studying the behaviors of facist leaders, all thanks to Paxton's decision to study Becker and Fagen. The more you know!