Baker Street (song)
| Baker Street | |
|---|---|
| Gerry Rafferty | |
| publication | 3rd February 1978 |
| length | 4:10 |
| Genre (s) | skirt |
| Author (s) | Gerry Rafferty |
| Publisher (s) | Belfern Music Ltd. / Island Music Ltd. |
| Award (s) | gold |
| album | City to city |
| Cover version | |
| 1992 | Undercover |
Baker Street is a rock song by Gerry Rafferty from 1978. As a single , the song reached high chart positions. Since then it has been played more than five million times on the radio and has been covered many times by other musicians . The piece is known for its distinctive saxophone solo .
Origin and content
Gerry Rafferty worked on a solo LP in 1978 after breaking up with his band Stealers Wheel . During this time he commuted between Glasgow and London because of legal disputes , where he often met with musician friends in Baker Street . The long train journeys and nightly sessions then provided the inspiration for the song with the rather sad and melancholy melody. The text is about the alienation of the first-person narrator in a cold city and the hope for a better life in the future. Rafferty himself said of the content:
“Everybody was suing each other, so I spent a lot of time on the overnight train from Glasgow to London for meetings with lawyers. I knew a guy who lived in a little flat off Baker Street. We'd sit and chat or play guitar there through the night ”
“Everyone was suing each other, so I spent a lot of time on the night train from Glasgow to London driving to negotiations with lawyers. I knew a guy who lived in a small apartment off Baker Street. We sat there all night and talked or played the guitar. "
occupation
- Singing - Gerry Rafferty
- Saxophone - Raphael Ravenscroft
- Lead guitar - Hugh Burns
- Drums - Henry Spinetti
- Bass - Gary Taylor
- Keyboards - Tommy Eyre
- Percussion - Glen Le Fleur
- Rhythm guitar - Nigel Jenkins
- String arrangement - Graham Preskett
Commercial win
The song appeared on Rafferty's album City to City and was released as a single in a two-minute shorter and therefore more radio-friendly version. At a time when the popularity of punk and new wave music was peaking, Baker Street's arrangement and instrumentalization were rather anachronistic, but this did not affect commercial success. Rafferty's original version reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 3 on the British and German single charts . In Australia, the title was number one on the charts. On July 18, 1978, Baker Street was awarded a gold record . In October 2010, the song was recognized by the BMI for more than five million performances.
Saxophone solo
A multitude of myths have grown up around the saxophone solo played by Raphael Ravenscroft . There were doubts about Rafferty's authorship based on the following statement by Ravenscroft:
“In fact, most of what I played was an old blues riff. If you're asking me: 'Did Gerry hand me a piece of music to play?' then no, he didn't. "
"Actually, I have not much more than an old played blues - reef . If you ask me, 'Did Gerry give me scores to play with?' Then [the answer is:] No, he didn't. "
In order to refute circulating rumors, a bonus track with an early demo version of the song was added to a re-release of the album City to City , in which the riff is still interpreted on the guitar. According to the session guitarist Hugh Burns, Rafferty is the sole author of the song's melody lines, and Rafferty personally recorded the guitar riff on the demo version.
On the 1968 album Tomorrow Never Knows by Steve Marcus, a similar saxophone intro is used in the song Tomorrow Never Knows . Rumors that the saxophone solo was recorded by British TV presenter Bob Holmes stem from a joke report on the New Musical Express in the 1980s.
As payment for the session, Ravenscroft is said to have received only a check for £ 27; which is said to have burst later. Rafferty himself received around £ 80,000 in royalties annually until his death in 2011 .
Cover versions
The commercially most successful cover version was released in 1992 by the British pop band Undercover and reached number 2 in the British single charts. Rafferty described this version as a terrible and banal, sad reflection of the times. In the animated series The Simpsons , Lisa Simpson plays a cover version in the episode "The Saxophone Story". The piece was used as the theme song in the pilot episode of the TV soap Stella and The Dave Ramsey Show (US radio) as well as in the soundtrack of Good Will Hunting and in the films Kung Fu Hustle and Zodiac . The Foo Fighters recorded a hard rock version of Baker Street as the b-side of their single My Hero , which peaked at number 34 on Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in 1998. Country singers Waylon Jennings , Rick Springfield and Jars of Clay also played the piece. Dance versions exist among others by DJ Octopus, by Deejay Goldfinger feat. Felisha and jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson . The German DJ duo Michael Mind also covered the song. A version by Shawn Colvin with David Crosby can be found on the album Uncovered from 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Chilton: Gerry Rafferty and his songs of alienation . In: telegraph . January 5, 2011.
- ↑ a b Martin Chilton: 'I was paid £ 27 for Baker Street sax solo'. The Telegraph, October 21, 2014, accessed November 24, 2016 .
- ^ Interview with Hugh Burns in January 2002 at andrewbrel.com
- ↑ Interview with Henry Spinetti at mikedolbear.com ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Paul Lester: Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street: Booze, promiscuity and punk spirit. The Guardian, January 5, 2011, accessed November 24, 2016 .
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 464
- ↑ BMI: 2010 BMI London Award Winners
- ↑ a b c Adam Chandler: 'Baker Street': The Mystery of Rock's Greatest Sax Riff. The Atlantic, December 17, 2015, accessed November 24, 2016 .
- ↑ Stuck in a battle with booze. The Scotsman, August 2, 2008, accessed March 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Jane Fryer: Haunted by his greatest hit: Baker Street made him rich beyond his dreams, but it plunged Gerry Rafferty into drunken self-destruction. Daily Mail, January 6, 2011, accessed November 24, 2016 .
- ↑ "Foo Fighters" Variations of "Baker Street" (English)
- ↑ coverinfo.de: query "Baker Street"
Web links
- Adam Chandler: 'Baker Street': The Mystery of Rock's Greatest Sax Riff. In: TheAtlantic.com . December 7, 2015 (English).
- Baker Street at Discogs