Windin' Your Way Down on Baker Street

I first noticed the Gerry Rafferty song Baker Street on a hot August day in 1988 riding to the White Plains Galleria in a car with no air conditioner. Towards the end, my radio kept getting interference from the parking garage we were in, so for a long while I never knew how it ended. The sax was mind-blowing enough, but the story grabbed me. That, and, hell, I was crazy about Sherlock Holmes. The Jeremy Brett series was just running on PBS in those days and so this song was like some crazy trifecta of, "How did I not hear this before?"

I didn't know Gerry Rafferty was from Stealer's Wheel, as a matter of fact I had yet to hear Stuck In The Middle with You and I didn't know Raphael Ravenscroft was the sax player on The Final Cut, because I hadn't heard that yet, either.

I didn't take the words literally, because I was going through all the mental things a 14-year-old goes through...with metal in their eyes, and I took the end as a sign that things would be okay, you get to go home.

It's been getting a lot of plays on the local smooth jazz station, and the recently returned CBS-FM, and I don't mind it at all. The fact that it keeps turning up in movies and TV shows just makes me take solace in all the other kids who heard it a long time ago, and included it in their work.

The Foo Fighters version ain't too shabby, either.

Windin' Your Way Down on Baker Street