SONG OF THE DAY
“Right Down The Line” by Gerry Rafferty (City To City, United Artists Records, 1978). Written by Gerry Rafferty.
WHY TODAY?
This has one of my all-time favorite songs for a long time, and was included on some earlier wedding playlists posted on the blog in July 2010. However, this song comes up today in its own entry because I just found out that Gerry Rafferty died this year, and I wanted to pay what small tribute I could to the man who gave me this song which carried me through the many years of long-distance relationship I carried on with who would eventually become my husband. “You know I need your love, you got that hold over me. As long as I’ve got your love there’s nowhere I’d rather be….I have no doubt in my mind. It’s been you, woman, right down the line.” Love it.
Funny story about this song. Years ago, when I was working my horrible cubicle job at an insurance company, one of my coworkers was getting maried to this TOTAL dud of a guy. Seriously, it was tragic dud-dom. Anyhow, I guess he told her one day that this was their song, and it was by Simon & Garfunkel. Well, she wanted to own it, so she searched high and low for it and bought EVERY SINGLE Simon & Garfunkel album trying to find it. Yeah, she’s not a bright bulb either because, mind you, this is 2006, so there is internet and very easy ways to look up what album a song is on and buy that one album. There are also easy ways to find out who sang the song. She did not take the easy route, however, she bought close to 30 CDs, listened to them day in and day out thinking she was missing the track and that it must be by some other name than “Right Down The Line”. Good god, the day finally comes where she tells me the whole story, and I did not sugar coat my response at all. I should have been more sensitive, but instead responded with: “Kerry, this is the dumbest story I’ve ever heard. Gerry Rafferty sings that song. I know that right off the top of my head. Everyone knows that. I bet you could have asked a million people. It’s a very popular song.” She was so excited to finally have the song though that she didn’t care that I was being mean as hell and basically calling her the dumbest person alive. I then turned to my computer and sent her a link to buy the album on amazon in about 2.5 seconds, and she freaked out. “HOW DID YOU FIND THE ALBUM???” It was ridiculous. From then on at work, she called me the “google queen” and eventually other people started turning to me for stupid questions and treating me to that title as well. This was a real, live LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU year. Consequently, it was one of the qorst years of my life.
But that all makes me laugh now, and I don’t think of that first when I hear this song. I think of my husband, and how he lovingly has stood by my side for over half a decade now, through thick and thin, across many states, through many phone bills and drama. I love you, Todd.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– City to City is an album by Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty. The album was strongly received and went to #1 in the US, going Platinum.
– “Right Down the Line” reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and spent four non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Easy Listening chart in the U.S., making this the only Rafferty song to ever reach #1 on any US chart.
– Gerald “Gerry” Rafferty (16 April 1947 – 4 January 2011) was a Scottish singer and songwriter best known for his solo hits “Baker Street”, “Right Down the Line” and, with the band Stealers Wheel, “Stuck in the Middle with You”.
– Rafferty and Joe Egan formed the group Stealers Wheels in 1972, producing several hits, most notably “Stuck in the Middle with You”.
– In 1978, he recorded his second solo album, City to City, which includes “Baker Street”, his most popular song.
– Rafferty was born on 16 April 1947 into a working-class family in Paisley, a son and grandson of coal miners.
– His Irish-born father, a violent alcoholic, was a miner and lorry driver who died when Rafferty was 16.
– His mother was Scottish and taught him both Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy: “My father was Irish so growing up in Paisley I was hearing all these songs when I was two or three. Songs like ‘She Moves Through the Fair’, which my mother sings beautifully. And a whole suite of Irish traditional songs and Scots traditional songs.”
– Heavily influenced by folk music and the music of The Beatles and Bob Dylan, the young Rafferty started to write his own material. “There was never anything else for me but music. I never intended making a career out of any of the jobs I did.”.
– In 1972, Rafferty formed Stealers Wheel, a group which was beset by legal wranglings, but did have a huge hit “Stuck in the Middle With You”, which 20 years later was used prominently in the 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs. The duo disbanded in 1975.
– Legal issues after the breakup of Stealers Wheel meant that, for three years, Rafferty was unable to releaseany material. After the disputes were resolved in 1978, he recorded his second solo album, City to City, with producer Hugh Murphy, which included the song with which he remains most identified, “Baker Street”.
– The single reached #3 in the UK and #2 in the US and featured a distinctive saxophone solo played by Raphael Ravenscroft, although written by Rafferty himself. The irony of the success of “Baker Street” was that the lyrics reflected Rafferty’s disenchantment with certain elements of the music industry.
– The album sold over 5.5 million copies, toppling the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in the US on 8 July 1978.
– The song remains a mainstay of soft-rock radio airplay and, in October 2010, it was recognised by the BMI for surpassing 5 million plays worldwide. “Stuck in the Middle With You” has received over 4 million plays worldwide, and “Right Down The Line” has had over 3 million plays.
– “Right Down the Line” is the third track from City to City. The song made #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts in the US, making this the only Rafferty song to ever reach #1 on any US or UK chart. It remained at the top of the adult contemporary chart for four non-consecutive weeks.
– Rafferty drew a clear distinction between the artistic integrity of a musician, on the one hand, and the music industry’s need to create celebrities and sell products, on the other. In an interview with Colin Irwin in 1988, he said: “There’s a thin line between being a songwriter and a singer and being a personality… If you feel uncomfortable with it you shouldn’t do it. It’s not for me – there are too many inherent contradictions.”
– Two decades later, speaking to the press after Rafferty’s funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers confirmed Rafferty’s dislike of celebrity: “He was not entirely comfortable with fame. Even more so than most people who work in this business, he saw it as not a good thing”. Reid believed Rafferty was fundamentally unsuited to the pressures of celebrity: “He struck me as a very, very sensitive man and for someone like that, fame was probably not appropriate.”
– Rafferty never changed his mind about the music business; if anything, his views hardened. In a November 2009 interview with the Sunday Express, he said: “The music industry… is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine. In many respects, this of course is exactly what it is now. Pumping out s**t like there’s no tomorrow.”
– The last word came from Father John Tormey, celebrating Rafferty’s funeral mass, who suggested the singer’s attitude to fame was an indication of his spiritual integrity: “He always searched for a more authentic way to live his life, shunning the outward trappings of celebrity so that he might live as he chose to live his life.”
– Rafferty told friends that his alcoholism dated back to his childhood, though even people close to him had no idea how it would come to dominate his life; according to Michael Gray, Rafferty’s personal manager in the early 1980s: “It never occurred to me in all the time I knew him that he was heading for alcoholism. Maybe I should have realised, but I didn’t. I’m unsure whether he did.” In 1995, Rafferty was deeply affected by the death of his older brother Joseph, an event from which family and friends have said he never fully recovered.
– In 2008, Rafferty briefly rented a home in Ireland, where his drinking soon became a problem again. In July that year, it was rumoured that his friend and former musical partner Billy Connolly had arranged for the singer to enter rehab. But Rafferty apparently checked himself out and flew to London instead, where he holed up in the five-star Westbury Hotel in Mayfair and began a four-day drinking session that left his room extensively damaged.
– In November 2010, Rafferty was admitted to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, where he was put on a life-support machine and treated for multi-organ failure. After being taken off life-support, Rafferty rallied for a time and it seemed that he might survive and recover. He died at his daughter Martha’s home in Stroud, Gloucestershire on 4 January 2011 of liver failure.
– The reaction of younger artists suggests Rafferty’s music has also inspired a new generation of fans. Shortly after news of the singer’s death, Lily Allen tweeted the message “Rest in Peace Gerry x” with a video link to the song “Right Down the Line”, reputedly one of her favourite music tracks.
– Electropop star LaRoux described “Right Down the Line” as “my favourite track of all time. It makes me think of home, nostalgia and happiness.”