"Baker Street" is a song by Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, who wrote its music and lyrics alone. It was released as a single on 3 February 1978 and appears on his second solo album, City to City (1978), his first release after legal problems over the breakup of Stealers Wheel. Rafferty wrote it while disentangling himself from his Stealers Wheel contracts, travelling between his family home in Paisley and London, where he often stayed at a friend's flat on Baker Street in Marylebone. It was recorded in 1977 at Chipping Norton Studios, co-produced by Rafferty and Hugh Murphy, with Hugh Burns playing the guitar solo and Henry Spinetti the drums.
The song is best known for its eight-bar alto saxophone break between verses, played by session musician Raphael Ravenscroft, which Billboard called "the most recognizable sax riff in pop music history". It won the 1979 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It reached No. 3 in the UK, No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in Canada, and topped the charts in Australia and South Africa. It is described as rock, jazz rock and soft rock. The 1992 cover by Undercover, produced by Steve Mac for PWL, reached No. 2 in the UK. Slash has cited the song as an influence on his solo in "Sweet Child o' Mine".
