Posted in: Musicouching by Arthur Chappell on January 23rd, 2012 | 0 Comments
A song about being stuck in a city many miles from home.
THE STORY IN THE SONG GERRY RAFFERTY BAKER STREET 1978
Album City To City
Rafferty was one of Britain’s greatest composers and folk-rock singers. He began as one of the Humblebums, alongside legendary Glaswegian comedian, Billy Connolly, before performing with a band he started, Stealer’s Wheel, best known for their 1972 hit, Stuck In The Middle With You.
The band suffered from line-up changes, management issues and long bitter legal conflicts which ruined Eafferty’s early efforts to launch a solo career. It also meant frequent gruelling commuting between Glasgow and London to meet lawyers and prepare court appearances. On many visits, Rafferty stayed with a friend who lived in a flat on Baker Street, and the song commemorates those unhappy times.
Baker Street is best thought of for its links to London’s famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, but Rafferty makes no reference to him. His song deals with waking up after late nights with his friend, drinking and composing songs, to go out to face the day’s business while still hung over and not fully recovered. With an added air of heartfelt homesickness, the song has a powerful air of sincerity.
The song balances alienation in a city full of strangers to the joys of the nights with his friend, unwinding, having his friend hear his sorry tales of how the day went.
Gerry knows his friend also wants to move away from London, and the song ends on a note of optimism with a bright sunny day, as Gerry finally gets to escape the endless commuting, inspired by the end of his legal wranglings.
The simple poetic lines are inter-cut with a brilliantly inventive saxophone riff, inspiring resurgence in sales and use of the instrument, as in Baggy Trousers by Madness.
When radio DJ and music journalist Stuart Maconi, claimed in a spoof NME magazine feature that TV quiz show presenter, Bob Holness, performed the saxophone solo, the rumour stuck and became a major urban legend. In fact, the saxophonist was Raphael Ravenscroft.
A dance group, Undercover, issued a dire and pointless cover version in 1992.
Arthur Chappell
