Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zwxmil
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3mCvsoJ
1
I wanted to hear this Gerry Rafferty song. But I wasn’t exactly sure of the title or what album it was on. And I was just about to start driving and I gave up, I just put Rafferty on shuffle. And everything sounded right.
“Baker Street” was a huge hit in 1978, on both AM and FM, you’d hear it everywhere you went, it was a summer song, back before we even spoke of a song of the summer, after all what could compete with “Satisfaction” or “Summer in the City.” And the sound of it was so pleasing the lyrics didn’t matter, and after all I was only 25, what did I really know about disillusionment, even though I thought I knew everything. But years later, “Baker Street” started to reveal itself. And now, the older I get the more insight I get. I was cruising down Sunset, going west towards the beach, just like in that Bryan Ferry song, just past the light at Barrington, by where the school is and it was like my world got larger, I could finally see the full panoply of life. (Don’t hassle me on the word choice, I had a self-satisfied criminal law professor who pronounced it like “monopoly,” over and over, and as a result the word has stuck in my head forevermore.)
But this isn’t about “Baker Street.”
I’d invested in the first Stealer’s Wheel album because I wanted to own “Stuck in the Middle With You,” to be able to hear it whenever I wanted, funny how a song infects you with its magic that way, and the reviews were good. I played it multiple times, but the record never revealed itself to me. As for the second LP? Once bitten, twice shy. But “Baker Street’ was so infectious, so great that I took a dive on “City to City,” after all I was already invested in Gerry Rafferty’s career.
“Stealin’ Time” is probably the second best song on “City to City.” Not that that was a single, the other cut that got radio play was “Right Down the Line.” Which was good, but nothing could be in the category of “Baker Street,” upon reflection it’s one of the great records of ALL TIME! Something the label said wasn’t a single, that fit no category, still fits no category, that’s sui generis and survives to this day.
And there’s one other really good song on “City to City,” “Home and Dry.” But honestly the album was not one of my favorites, I kept on playing it but these are the only tracks that revealed themselves to me.
But I bought the follow-up, “Night Owl,” because that’s what you did, and it wasn’t as good as “City to City.”
I might have bought “Snakes and Ladders,” I think so, I’d have to check my vinyl in storage to be sure, but now I’m listening on Spotify and I definitely did own it, not that I loved it, and it meant nothing in America.
And then came 1982’s “Sleepwalking,” which I definitely wouldn’t have bought, but I found a promo in the bin, one of the advantages of living in Los Angeles, and it was a complete return to form, but by this time no one in America was paying attention, cared.
The killer, the song I was looking for that night, which I wasn’t absolutely sure of, is the closer, “As Wise as a Serpent.”
“Now you once asked me why we can’t communicate
But it doesn’t always pay to tell the truth
If I told you right now you’d only run away, run away, run away home”
The tone is so personal, so introspective, so irresistible, you can’t help but let it penetrate you. Do you tell the truth in relationships? It’s one thing to lie, quite another to lie by omission.
“So we sit in empty rooms and dream our lives away”
At some point it gets too late, possibly a very few can lift themselves up by their bootstraps, but somewhere along the line you realize you missed it, the boat has passed you by, you thought opportunities would present themselves, you didn’t know how to make them.
2
So I’m enjoying listening to Gerry Rafferty so much I don’t want to lose the mood, so I continue listening after I start my hike, and that’s when I hear “Sleepwalking”.
“Sleep won’t come so you lie there waitin’, lookin’ at the silvery light
Tellin’ yourself there’s nothin’ new, so whatever gets you through the night
Meanwhile back in the music business the beat goes on and on
I sell my soul to the company man when there’s nothin’ else to lean upon”
These lines I could never forget, about selling his soul to the company man, Rafferty had a long history of trouble with labels, but back then there was a clear dividing line between the man and the act, between the company and the creator, there was no Don Passman book, most musicians were in the dark.
But it’s not only the lyrics of “Sleepwalking,” it’s the sound, the groove.
You see after having no success Rafferty switched producers and sounds, he used synths, but subtly, it wasn’t so much that his music was modernized as much as it was extracted from where it had been, put into a new context so the songs could finally shine.
So I’m on one of the hardest parts of the trail, it’s relatively steep, and “Sleepwalking” is keeping me going, putting one foot in front of the other, and I can’t turn it off, I’m shimmying as I go forward, I’m elated, but finally the trail flattens and I let my phone slip to the next song.
3
Now the funny thing is in my memory “Sleepwalking” was the radio track, the hit, but in truth I had it exactly backwards, it was “Get It Right Next Time” that penetrated the airwaves. I felt like I was having a revelation, an insight no one else had had, but this was untrue. Or was it?
“Out on the street I was talking to a man
He said there’s so much of this life of mine that I don’t understand”
I must have played the track three, maybe four times, before the lyrics started revealing themselves to me, and in truth it was the last verse that resonated. But it was like a bolt of lightning, I had to go back to the top to see what this song had to say.
The older you get, the less you know. Oh, you know more than the youngsters, but you’re aware of all you don’t know. Your perspective changes, you can see the entire world, it’s vast, you can never know it all. And although life is a personal journey, you interact with others, do you know enough to do so?
“You shouldn’t worry I said, that ain’t no crime
‘Cause if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”
I hate this kind of optimism. But since I’d understood the last verse first, I knew what Rafferty was talking about. Which was going forward, not getting stuck in the past, so worried about making a mistake that you were paralyzed, that you couldn’t go forward.
“You need direction, yeah, you need a name
When you’re standing in the crossroads every highway looks the same
After a while you can recognize the signs
So if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”
You do, need direction that is. And there are plenty of people who will tell you where to go and you risk sacrificing your life to them, not doing what you want to do. But life is so confusing, which way should you go? It’s unclear, but as you forage it comes clear, you go down a few alleys and then you realize you could never stay there, you belong somewhere else. You gain this inner confidence.
“Life is a liar, yeah, life is a cheat
It’ll lead you on and pull the ground from underneath your feet
No use complaining, don’t you worry, don’t you whine
‘Cause if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”
That’s what you don’t know, that you ultimately can’t believe, no one is in charge, there is no scorecard, life is not fair, it just is. Meanwhile, time goes by, you make mistakes, there are fewer grains of sand in the hourglass. But all you can do is keep on keepin’ on. And you’d be surprised how many people do not. They experience a couple of breakups and they’re resistant to being in a relationship again. Oh, they say they want to be but they expect their significant other to drop from the sky, in love with them from the outset. You need a bit of optimism, a bit of get up and go, to proceed. And once you realize there is no hierarchy, that in truth no one cares about you, that there is no pecking order, you live and you die, no one will be remembered, you start to move forward, although sometimes this doesn’t happen until you’re near retirement age, but it’s never too late.
4
My car was close to new. I’m more worried about the interior, the mechanics as opposed to the exterior, and therefore I don’t wash my automobile as often as I should, but when I do I want it to be clean, to shine sans gross imperfections.
So I’m doing the same routine, driving to hike. But a buddy is with me. And I was feeling self-conscious, I wanted to go further up before I pulled a U-turn, but I didn’t, and my car rubbed up against some bushes, no big deal, right? But there was this sound. And after I parked I went out to inspect. This bush had been trimmed back, these were not flexible fronds, the limbs of this bush were rigidly stiff, and they scratched my car from stem to stern, from the front panel all the way past the doors to the rear panel. Not that I could see it so well, it was nearly dark, but the next morning… Ugh.
So I went to the dealership, asked for an estimate, figuring they’d laugh at me, tell me it wasn’t that big a problem, that the scratches could be buffed out. But after waiting for about twenty minutes they came back with an estimate for THOUSANDS!
Yeah, those scratches were pretty deep. But they were not down to the metal skin. They were not horrific. I was not going to lay down these kinds of dollars, I was disillusioned and defeated.
And then two days later I went to my shrink and told him the story. I knew he wouldn’t give me any sympathy, but I was looking for understanding.
And he said unless you color outside the line sometimes you never know where the line is.
Some people spend their entire lives worried about crossing the line, so they stay far away. Others test the limits, and realize they’re much further out than they thought. And in truth in so many ways I play it safe, I don’t want any destruction, I don’t want to metabolize the injury. But the shrink liberated me, I saw the possibilities, the OPPORTUNITIES!
“You got to grow, you got to learn by your mistakes
You got to die a little every day just to try to stay awake
When you believe there’s no mountain you can climb
And if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time
Next time, hmm”
This is the final verse, this is the one that resonated with me. It’s true, you’ve got to make mistakes, otherwise you don’t know where the line is. And it hurts to get it wrong, but it’s the only way to progress, to reach the destination, where you want to go. You can be fearful and get somewhere, but all the way? That’s something different.
5
I know Gerry Rafferty died of alcoholism.
What I didn’t know was the story was much worse than I thought. Enough years have gone by since the last time I researched him in depth that the story’s been fleshed out, there’s much more information. Rafferty was not only an alcoholic, at the end he moved from hotel to hotel, causing so much damage, leaving the rooms so soiled that the help, the management, had never seen anything like it. It was ugly.
There was also a story how Raphael Ravenscroft said he improvised the famous sax riff in “Baker Street.” Rafferty said he did not. He said he sang the line to Ravenscroft, that it was in the original demo. And lo and behold, thanks to the magic of the internet, the “Baker Street” demo is online!
And the stunning thing is it is a demo. Today’s demos are so polished they could be released as finished versions. But not this demo, it’s a rough recording, but more than just an acoustic rendition. But the riff, that Raphael Ravenscroft built an entire career on, got a record deal out of, it’s right there: https://bit.ly/39fgLVI
But what stunned me was not that Rafferty had written the riff, but his VOICE!
Today nobody can sing, or that’s all they can do. Studio trickery rules. Effects. Auto-Tune. But in this demo Rafferty sounds EXACTLY THE SAME AS HE DOES ON RECORD!
It’s astounding, it’s not the kind of voice that wins a TV show, he’s not a belter, his voice is rich, it’s got character, a smoothness, yet it’s still rock and roll. I was completely wowed, still am.
“You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you’re tryin’, you’re tryin’ now
Another year and then you’ll be happy
Just one more year and then you’ll be happy
But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now”
Delayed gratification. It’s the key to any achievement in this life, but most people can’t wait, can’t pay their dues, they’ve got to forgo education, they’ve got to start now, and then years later they realize the building blocks they missed, the experiences they lost.
Life is so hard, so damn hard. It’s hard to achieve one thing, never mind more. You put in years, and you still might not make it. Maybe you adjust your dream, but to make it all the way to the top, stardom in your world…man it’s nearly impossible. And relationships are hard too.
But you’ve got to be determined, you can lick your wounds for a while but then you’ve got to get back up, get back at it.
“But you know he’ll always keep movin’
You know he’s never gonna stop movin’
‘Cause he’s rollin’, he’s the rollin’ stone
And when you wake up, it’s a new mornin’
The sun is shinin’, it’s a new mornin’
You’re goin’, you’re goin’ home”
This is what it’s all about for a musician, they’ve got to keep movin’, they’re rolling stones. Once you pander to your fans, once you stop pushing the envelope, you may be rich, but you’re done.
Every day it’s a new morning, funny how that is. And if you get your head straight and the sun is shining you’re thrilled to be alive, all you can think about is the POSSIBILITIES!
That’s what we’re looking for from our musical heroes. Some help, some direction, from people who’ve been there and done that. We’re not going to get it from business people, false prophets, but unique individuals in pursuit of their personal truth. To the point when you hear their songs you’re inspired to pick a direction and march forward, aware you’re going to get it wrong…
But you’re gonna get it right next time!
