"Baker Street" by Foo Fighters

Happy New Year Dialophiles! Myself, the Missus, and the Radio Dial kids wish all of you a happy and healthy new year! May the next twelve months be filled with love, laughter, prosperous times, and above all… quality tunage!!!

To start 2015 off right, we offer up the final entry in our study of cover tunes from the 1990s. We’ve slow-grooved to Groove Theory’s “Hello Its Me”, then enlightened with Vanessa-Mae’s “Classical Gas”. Now, we rock in the New Year with alternative rock kings the Foo Fighters, and their late ‘90s rendition of “Baker Street”.

“Winding your way down on Baker Street… Light in your head, and dead on your feet…”

The original Baker Street was a smash US #2 and UK #3 hit for Gerry Rafferty in 1978. Rafferty, previously best known as the vocalist on Stealers Wheel’s 1973 classic “Stuck in the Middle with You”, enjoyed resurgence that year with his City to City LP. The career highlight album contained his signature song, and the follow up hits “Right Down the Line”, and “Home and Dry”.

Dave Grohl and his fellow “Foos”, Franz Stahl, Nate Mendel, and Taylor Hawkins, recorded their alt-grunge-pop version of Rafferty’s sentimental classic as the B-side to the 1998 single “My Hero”, a US #59 entry on the Hot 100. Bringing the song into contemporary times, Grohl replaces the signature saxophone riff with distorted guitar, and changes one lyric slightly. “Booze” is replaced with “Crack” as the vice of choice for the friend who will settle down… in a quiet little town… in order to give it a modern, grimy feel.

Perhaps owing to its B-side status, Grohl’s cover was not pushed in a big way at radio, and as such, its only chart showing was #34 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart, with no hot 100 crossover whatsoever. I imagine it could have peaked somewhere in the mid-twenties on the singles chart, had it been released as its own single and had accompanying (and deserved) promotion behind it.

“Another crazy day… you drink the night away… and forget about everything.”

Personally, I first heard the song not on the radio, but on a great two disc LP from EMI-Capital called “Interpretations”. Originally released in the UK as “Come Again”, the tag line for this collection is… “Today’s great artists perform yesterday’s classics”, and that’s exactly what it delivers. We’re treated to outstanding tracks like Belinda Carlisle & Radiator’s punky-pop rendition of The Sex Pistol’s “Submission”, and John Butler’s haunting cover of Bobbie Gentry’s small-town scandal laden “Ode to Billy Joe”, among additional modernized takes on familiar tracks by the likes of The Beatles, The Supremes, The Stranglers, David Bowie, Glen Campbell, Kate Bush, and many more.

Plus, it has a silly ostrich picture on the cover. And that’s funny.

“Used to think that it was so easy… you used to say that it was so easy… but you’re trying, you’re trying now.”

My good friend DJ Tommy B let me borrow this CD knowing my fondness for cover tunes, and I quickly made a cassette copy to listen to on the drive to and from work. Baker Street was one track in particular that I wore out the rewind button on, queuing it up to listen to again and again… you know, because my car only had a tape deck, being a ’95 Mercury Tracer and all. Not everybody’s car was CD capable yet. Don’t judge me.

“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.”

So we invite you to crank it up, and rock out to the Foos’ jammin’ take on a late 70s top 40 nugget. And as you listen, ponder this… This entry, this very one right here, is the ONE HUNDREDTH review on the Dial! Thanks to all you Dialophiles for reading, listening, and checking in over these three years! The Dial will be here as long as we can, spotlighting great tracks, reawakening memories and broadening your musical horizons! Always remember, and never forget… the more you listen… the MORE you REMEMBER!!!