Baker Street

When I was 5 or so, my folks had a banging stereo system. One of those nice component systems with a pair of speakers sitting on the floor that were each bigger than me. There are songs I remember my mother playing that would fill the whole house, and I would get right next to one of the speakers and soak it all in.

Barry Manilow’s - “Copacabana” and Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” were the ones I heard most often (and we’ll get to “Sailing” very soon). But “Baker Street” was another song in heavy rotation.

The trend of the saxophone solo in popular 80s songs begins in the late 70s with Rafferty’s huge hit named after London’s “Baker Street” and ends with the infamous scene from the Lost Boys in which session veteran Tim Capello flexed his way through a hip-shaking, fist-pumping INXS parody.

But in between, having a memorable saxophone in your song was the surest path to pop relevance. My top five favorite sax songs from this period:

1. Gerry Rafferty - “Baker Street”
2. Quarterflash - “Harden My Heart”
3. Men at Work - “Who Can it Be Now?”
4. Rolling Stones - “Waiting on a Friend”
5. Wham! - “Careless Whisper”

Both “Harden My Heart” and “Baker Street” pair their lead saxophones with memorable, electrifying guitar solos, and “Harden My Heart” in particular has a gorgeous descending chord passage that still gives me chills.

But “Baker Street” was and remains my favorite song of all time. And it’s not just the sax and guitar. The song’s production overall is a lush bed of synths, congas, and strings that Beck will later imitate on his Sea Change and* Morning Phase*. It’s ridiculously well put together and I hear something new every time I listen. The song also has the best lyrics Rafferty ever wrote.

“Baker Street” is a sad-bastard masterpiece. Rafferty wrote the song about what it was like commuting between his home in Scottland and his friend’s place on London’s Baker Street, when he necessarily spent three years mired in legal woes and unable to release music after leaving Stealer’s Wheel (yes, Rafferty co-wrote “Stuck in the Middle with You”).

Growing up the song’s town and country rumination reminded me a lot of my own commute as a child-of-divorce shuttling between my dad’s home in the suburbs and mom’s place in the city. I felt like I had two windows into adulthood, neither of which offered a me satisfying vision of my future self. I met a lot of adults who didn’t quite know what they were doing, but seemed pretty sure things were on the upswing.

Turns out that’s life on a lot of streets.

Fave lyrics:

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