Songs I Like (63)

~ beetleypete

Most readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of the American band, Steely Dan. If push came to shove, they might be the group whose records I would take to the proverbial desert island.

So here is another one from their back catalogue, released as a single, and also on the album ‘Pretzel Logic’, from 1974.

We hear you’re leaving, that’s okay
I thought our little wild time had just begun
I guess you kind of scared yourself, you turn and run
But if you have a change of heart
Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
I have a friend in town, he’s heard your name
We can go out driving on Slow Hand Row
We could stay inside and play games, I don’t know
And you could have a change of heart
Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
You tell yourself you’re not my kind
But you don’t even know your mind
And you could have a change of heart
Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Donald Jay Fagen / Walter Carl Becker
Rikki Don’t Lose That Number lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

42 thoughts on “Songs I Like (63)”

  3. Pingback: Songs I Like (63) | beetleypete | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

          1. Me neither. I think that people of my age, (I think I’m a bit older than you), who grew up in the 50s have been so lucky. The 50s was an optimistic decade, and brought the teenager and the start of rock and roll. WWII had finished, and we then lived out teens in the swinging sixties when ‘peace and love’ was the mantra. The fashions of the seventies were bright and colourful. Peace reigned during the 80s, and the Berlin Wall came down at the end, creating a feeling of hope for the world. And we had Glasnost.

            Things like climate change and ecological disasters hadn’t happened.

            And in the 90s, as Bob Dylan said, The Music Died.

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  12. I liked all the lyrics they set to their four songs. Like Alan Parsons and ZZ Top. Well, ZZ gets a pass because how many Stones albums are there, actually? One and its been on repeat for 60 years. I always waited for the next Dans’ album, whether it covered any new musical ground or not, the production was leading edge. One of their mostn prolific bassists. Chuck Rainey, was a regular hang at the Pro Shop I managed in Dallas. The best thing about Dan is the stories, though. That’s what’s missing. I could listen the same four riffs of SD all day long for the stories they rotated in and out of them. Some you had to experience for yourself before realizing exactly how perfectly they’re drawn.

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      1. I never bought Fagen’s stuff, don’t know why. Bought all the albums up through Two Against Nature. Wore the grooves off the records and oxide off the tapes of Katy Lied. There was a line used with a grin in the SF Bay when the conversation turned to the good herb grown north of the bridge – Man, got me so high I understood Steely Dan🤣

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  15. Loved Steely Dan but wasn’t fussed on this choice but rather Reeling in the years, Do it again & My old school. The band had that country rock a billy folk feel that was easy to listen to & sing the choruses.

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  18. Pete, top three for me as well…every single album brilliant for a different reason – I know some like the “rockier” Dan versus the jazz-influenced later material but I love it all…and of course, let me add that this album’s title track has this wicked take on men’s fashion at the time: “I stepped upon the platform, the man gave me the news. He said “you must be joking son – where did you get those shoes?”

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