Sensational '70's Tune for Monday, June 29th, '09

Just to clear up a generation's worth of rumors about the lyrics of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," Walter Becker stated for the record in a 1985 interview in the pages of Musician that the "number" in question was not slang for a marijuana cigarette ("send it off in a letter to yourself," supposedly a way to safely transport one's dope back before the post office abolished general delivery mail, was held up as the key line), and an uncharacteristically forthcoming Donald Fagen has similarly revealed that the " Rikki" in question was simply a woman he'd had a crush on in college. It says something about Steely Dan's reputation as obscurantists that even a straightforward lost-love song like "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" could be so widely over-interpreted. After a strangely quiet, hollow-sounding introduction played on the flopanda, a sort of electrified marimba, the song proper starts with a bass-heavy piano riff lifted outright from Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," set to a samba-like beat from drummer Jim Gordon, opening into one of Steely Dan's most graceful melodies. It's unsurprising that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" ended up becoming Steely Dan's biggest commercial hit (hitting number four in the summer of 1974), as it's one of the group's most gentle and accessible songs.