Baker Street Lyrics - Gerry Rafferty

This song plays as the into to Dave Ramsey's radio program. He himself was in bad strights and figured out how to get out. It makes me sad because I am trying hard to get out of my mess and then I hear this song played by a guy who's been there but from the other side.

I was eight when this song came out and, as someone else said above, the words made me feel sad even though I loved the song. They still make me sad to this day. For me these lyrics carry a sense of great loss and loneliness.

No wonder we love it. It's a great song about all of us. Baker street is every street and road. It's about every dream, every failure, every addiction we want to be free from but can't seem to live without, and every candid talk with a friend. The home we go to at nght and the one we dream of some place better than where we are. The hope for a better day tomorrow. So we keep going on, rolling stones, longing for a better home in a quiet, peace'full place. Thank GOD it's waiting for me and I'm not alone. Thanks for putting it to music Gerry.

My mother played this song on a 45 many times over during my childhood. I didn't know or understand the lyrics but it made me feel sadness but I still liked it. I lost the love of my life to a battle with alcohol. Truly alcohol destroys lives. It took his and left mine full of heartache. This song reminds me of him and all who suffer with this battle. Thank you Gerry for your honest emotion stirring lyrics. I know you are resting in peace.

Give up the booze and the one night stands, says it all surely. I think Rafferty was writing about himself. After all, he did eventually accept his alcoholism and tried to settle down, " In Ireland of all places ".

Whatever demons he wrestled with, only he knew them well. We all come from different places, some of us carry a heavy baggage. To be able to express the pain of your very soul the way he did, it takes bravery and talent. May he rest in peace, since he could not find a heaven here....

I'm amazed at some of the interpretations of this.
First of all just enjoy a masterful song for what it is, it is a perfect blend, music and emotion that has stood the test of time and will continue to be a classic.
Second, the lyric is pretty obvious, Gerry Rafferty was well known to write about what he knew, what was happening to him and what he observed. It isn't fiction or political it is about someone who has been disappointed at the direction their life has taken. It is a song about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence.
To me it says that Gerry Rafferty enjoyed the music, thought he'd make a go of being successful at it and then came to realise that what he was happy with was music, not being a success.
Gerry Rafferty, a fine talent, immortalised with his music, sadly missed.

when I first heard this song on the radio back in 1978 it got to my very soul. Wow what a musical masterpiece. The way the guitar and sax were in perfect harmony!!1978 was a bad year for me but this song made me think about how I needed to change my own life around thank you gerry rafferty...

According to Wikipedia, Gerry Rafferty was in the process of breaking off with Stealers Wheel and "Everyone was suing everyone"... so he was spending a lot of time commuting to London, and meeting with Lawyers. After a day of trial and meetings, and negotiations, he would frequently crash at a friend's pad... and as a result, they'd "talk about anything". At the end of the song, the legal fighting is over, and so his spirits lift cause he's going home again. The song expresses Gerry's dissatisfaction with the Rock & Roll music world of London. He's fed up, and weary, and wants to go home.

For years, I thought it was a story of a waitress walking home after work, and finding her boyfriend high, not getting anywhere, not moving forward, but spinning his wheels and wasting her time. But in the ending, she's resolved to leave him, leave the city, and make a break in her life. She's going home...

I was totally wrong, as it turns out, but it still speaks to me every time I hear it.

Baker Street is obviously about Dr Watson and his sordid cohabtation with Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was always claiming he was ging to give up the cottaging and heroine but as soon as Watson came back to him hed back playing with his "violin" as he called it.

But seriously, someone says its subtly gy: wheres the subtlety, in a song about a guy who calls on another guy and spends the night with him? How more obviously gay can it be?

I caannot believe some of the clueless comments on here. Some people twist any song to mean whats on ther mind. Like the one who interprets it as a neo-Marxist critique of "our unsatisfatory lives in Western societies" (speak for yourself, loser). As for it being a statement against going to college and getting a steeady job...doh! Its not people who go to college and get a steady job who run off to the big ciy thinking that youll get quick fame and fortune, as the song says "
And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong, When you thought it held everything"

Au contraire, its those who reject the humdrum to chase their dreams that the song is patently about. Like the young woman whose run off to London to become a star and I wish would come back to me....! (True Story Moment).

Bwah! (saxophone wails).

It's not officially summer time until Baker Street plays...this song has been special to me since I was a child hearing it for the first time in 1978 I was 9 years old. It still gives me the chills when I hear that sax play..... long live Baker Street, long live Gerry...!

When I heard this song I was 16 and didn't understand a ward yet I was sure that this song is one of the best ever written.....The music, guitar, sax gentle voice ....has everything. Even now after 33 years still is as good as ever, and that is what the reall rock is about. The meaning of the song could be different and so many people indentify themselves with it (hookers, homles, guy drifters etc.) and the god things is they are all right. The rock at it's best.

Baker street is an important song to me because it conveys a feeling of a time in America that only music can. The song came out at a time when going to college and assuming a college mindset regarding life and media really became in vogue and perceived as the ticket to happiness and prosperity. This song is special because the lyrics challege that presumption, yet the sophistication of the instrumental composition creates an atmosphere that simultaneously supports that supposition.

Strange that you can hear something thousands of times and not get what a song is about. Since I first heard the song in 1978, I thought what Gerry was telling us about was the unsatisfactory lives that most of us in western communities live. Thats what I always thought of when the song was playing on the radio...

No words here that I can write will ever convey the sentiments you so magically compose. A sad day Gerry, sad day indeed. So happy to have the pleasure of your music in my life.

Now you'll wake up it's a new mornin'
The sun will shine it's a new mornin'
You're going, you're going home...