In 1997, the Foo Fighters released “The Colour and the Shape“, their mega-selling album that included such songs as “My Hero“, “Everlong” and “Monkey Wrench“. Also included on the album was a really respectable version of the classic Gerry Rafferty song “Baker Street” which was the B-side of “My Hero”. In a 2011 interview with The Telegraph, Rafferty explained how the song came about.
Stealers Wheel recorded only three albums and the band’s fractious history was marked by legal problems and a host of personnel changes.Rafferty said the legal issues helped him write Baker Street, which featured a memorable saxophone solo by Raphael Ravenscroft, who died on October 19 2014 aged 60. He said: “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.”The final resolution of his legal problems was reflected in the song’s final optimistic verse:
When you wake up it’s a new morning,
The sun is shining, it’s a new morning,
You’re going, you’re going home.
Gerry Rafferty performing the original version in 1978.
Thanks Jason Laskodi!
