Chart Week: July 22, 1978
\nSong: \u201cBaker Street\u201d – Gerry Rafferty
\nChart Position: #2, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for six weeks.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been wanting to write about this song for ages, and everything finally lined up thanks to an AT40<\/em> I caught last week.<\/p>\n \u201cBaker Street\u201d is one of the greatest songs of its time. Or any time for that matter. It is an unforgettable, undeniable, unassailable piece of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll art. I defy you to listen without cranking it up as loud as is acceptable for your location to revel in its glory.<\/p>\n Sadly, though, it was subject of one of the great screw-jobs in chart history. One that had a direct impact on what Casey Kasem said on two different American Top 40<\/em> broadcasts.<\/p>\n Scotsman Gerry Rafferty had six US Top 40 hits in his career; two with the band Stealers Wheel and four as a solo artist. \u201cBaker Street\u201d was, by far, the biggest of those hits. For five weeks in the summer of 1978 it sat at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, stuck behind what would become the #1 song of the entire year, Andy Gibb\u2019s \u201cShadow Dancing.\u201d However, in late July it looked like Rafferty would sneak past Gibb into the top spot.<\/p>\n In AT40<\/em> replays from the 1970s, Casey often gave clues about what the next number one song would be. I always assumed this was because in the \u201870s, AT40<\/em> lagged the actual data by a week or two, and he had an idea of what songs would shuffle into what spots in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n The week of July 22, 1978, Casey shared one of these hints in an interesting way. Before playing \u201cBaker Street,\u201d he read a question from a listener asking what country had the most artists with number one hits per capita. He answered Scotland, with four: The Bay City Rollers, The Average White Band, Donovan, and Lulu against a population of about five million. But, Casey suggested, maybe there was about to be a fifth.<\/p>\n When it came time to record the next week\u2019s countdown, Casey indeed worked off a chart that listed \u201cBaker Street\u201d as the number one song in America. He laid down vocals confirming that fact. However, before the show could be mastered and distributed, the chart was adjusted keeping the top two songs as they had been for the previous five weeks. Casey re-recorded the final segment of his show to reflect this correction. A week later \u201cShadow Dancing\u201d finally fell to number five\u2026but \u201cBaker Street\u201d also fell four notches to number six.<\/p>\n What on earth happened? How can the Billboard numbers change after they\u2019ve already been locked in for the American Top 40<\/em> deadline?<\/p>\n The urban legend, and one that seems to have a lot of legs, suggests that Andy Gibb\u2019s management team was responsible. They met with representatives from Billboard to plan for the singer\u2019s appearance on a Billboard-sponsored show. When Gibb\u2019s agents learned that \u201cShadow Dancing\u201d was about to fall out of the top spot, they strongly inferred that their client would not be making an appearance on the program if his song was no longer number one. Since Gibb was one of the hottest stars in the world at the moment, this sent Billboard scrambling to adjust the count and ensure Gibb\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n Or so people say.<\/p>\n Whether true or not it is a fun theory to speculate about.<\/p>\n So, sure, Andy Gibb kept Gerry Rafferty from earning a number one hit on the Billboard chart. And that sucks. But I guarantee \u201cBaker Street\u201d gets played way more often now than \u201cShadow Dancing\u201d does, and probably has every year since 1978.[1]<\/a> So suck that, Andy Gibb (RIP).<\/p>\n By the way, since that question was asked of Casey, four more Scottish acts have topped the Hot 100: Rod Stewart, Sheena Easton, Lewis Capaldi, and Calvin Harris. I would imagine that means Scotland still has the most number one artists per capita of any country. Even with Gerry Rafferty getting screwed.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n There is also a controversy about who wrote the incendiary sax line that anchors the song. You can read all about that here<\/a>. What blew my mind when I read this piece was that Hugh Burns, who plays the roaring guitar solo on \u201cBaker Street,\u201d also played on George Michael\u2019s \u201cCareless Whisper,\u201d another song that is built upon a monster sax riff. Crazy coincidence!<\/p>\n Oh, and if you don\u2019t think this song is a 10<\/strong>, you can fuck right off.<\/p>\n (Worth noting that Tom Breihan wrote about \u201cBaker Street\u201d and the various stories behind it as a bonus track for The Number Ones during last year\u2019s Stereogum fundraiser. You can read it here<\/a>. He only gave it a nine. \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f)<\/p>\n
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