• Track: Baker Street
• Artist: Gerry Rafferty
• Album: City to City
• Year: 1978

Lyrics:

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You’ll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold
It’s got so many people, but it’s got no soul
And it’s taken you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You’ll drink the night away
And forget about everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you’re trying, you’re trying now
Another year and then you’d be happy
Just one more year and then you’d be happy
But you’re crying, you’re crying now

Way down the street there’s a light in his place
He opens the door, he’s got that look on his face
And he asks you where you’ve been
You tell him who you’ve seen
And you talk about anything
He’s got this dream about buying some land
He’s gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he’ll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything

But you know he’ll always keep moving
You know he’s never gonna stop moving
‘Cause he’s rolling, he’s the rolling stone
And when you wake up, it’s a new morning
The sun is shining, it’s a new morning
And you’re going, you’re going home

Get It:

Your copy of Gerry Rafferty’s City to City is waiting for you right here:

If you’d like to add the Foo Fighters’ version of Baker Street to your collection, the band included this hard-to-find single on the expanded edition of The Colour and the Shape. You can also find copies of the Essential Interpretations covers album on Amazon. I have it, and there are some good tracks there, but none come close to the Foos’ rendition of Baker Street:

Dances with Bass YouTube Channel:

When we think of iconic melodies that immediately evoke memories of a time and place, the soaring saxophone melody in Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street bubbles to the top of our list. While the name Gerry Rafferty isn’t likely to top many people’s lists of influential artists, we think that’s a shame because Rafferty is responsible for a number of era-defining tracks including the aforementioned Baker Street, Right Down the Line, and Stuck in the Middle with You.

Scottish-born Rafferty got his start in music as a member of a folk-pop group, The Humblebums, in 1969; Rafferty got his first taste of fame in 1972 with Stealers Wheel and its smash single, Stuck in the Middle with You. Unfortunately, Stealers Wheel wasn’t long for the music world thanks to tensions with co-founder, Joe Egan, and the band split in 1975. Stealers Wheel produced two additional minor hits, Everything’ll Turn Out Fine and Star, but neither had the staying power of Stuck in the Middle with You, which got a bump in popularity when it was featured in a, um, famously violent scene in the Quentin Tarantino film, Reservoir Dogs.

Lingering legal issues stemming from his time in Stealers Wheel prevented Rafferty from releasing any further material until 1978 when he dropped today’s featured album, City to City. There might be only a handful of songs that with just a few notes can immediately transport me to my childhood, and Baker Street is one such track. The saxophone solo by Raphael Ravenscroft¹ perfectly encapsulates late 1970s rock and stands as one of the most recognizable riffs ever recorded.

Baker Street soared to number 3 in the UK and number 2 in the U.S., and as of 2010, the song had been aired 5 million times on the radio. City to City climbed to number 1 on the Billboard charts thanks to the power of Baker Street and a second hit, Right Down the Line. Unfortunately, the author of the famous saxophone riff has been disputed with both Rafferty and Ravenscroft claiming ownership. Rafferty says he sang the riff to Ravenscroft, but Ravenscroft says he created the melody based on an old blues riff. Unfortunately, the harmony between the musicians wasn’t nearly so fine as that which graced the airwaves.

Interestingly, the title Baker Street was inspired by an actual London street of the same name. According to Rafferty, while dealing with legal woes stemming from his split from Stealers Wheel, he traveled regularly between London and his family home in Paisley; while in London, he bunked with a friend who lived on Baker Street.

Rafferty would go on to release another seven solo albums; 1979’s Night Owl did reasonably well, but it never recaptured the power of City to City. For what it’s worth, City to City is one of the most played full albums here at the Dances with Bass island hovel. It is a nose-to-tail excellent record that deserves a spot in your collection.

Rafferty struggled with alcoholism for much of his career, and beginning in 2008, he mostly disappeared from public view with his whereabouts a subject of some debate. Sadly, he died in 2011 after multiple organ failure. He was 63.

¹ Interestingly (to us anyway), Raphael Ravenscroft is no relation to Thurl Ravenscroft, who was both the voice of Tony the Tiger (of Frosted Flakes fame) and the vocalist who sang, You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grich. After laying down his big city saxophone riff for Rafferty’s album, Raphael Ravenscroft performed with multiple artists, even appearing on Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. He died in 2014 at age 60 of a suspected heart attack.

Video:

The full version (not the radio edit) of the song is here:

Official Dances with Bass patron saints of all that’s good and holy in rock music, the Foo Fighters, covered Baker Street for Essential Interpretations: Today’s Great Artists Perform Yesterday’s Classics, a collection of covers that was released in 1998:

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