Lyrics for Rikki Don't Lose That Number as interpreted by AbFab

Rikki Don't Lose That Number Lyrics
We hear you're leaving, that's OK
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:

CHORUS:
Rikki Don't Lose That Number
You don't wanna 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

CHORUS

You tell yourself you're not my kind
But you don't even know your mind
And you could have a change of heart

CHORUS

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khrysta
11-17-2009

Rated 0 
i always thought this song was about a friend talking to a drug addict trying to get clean. leaving drug friends behind, moving away from the stuff, etc. or even an alcoholic. all of the above statements make sense also.

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lorawow
11-17-2009

Rated 0 
I agree with Austinbarry~
I've always heard this described as the poor man's copyright.
Don't lose that number, send it off in a letter to yourself.
Keep the sealed/post marked envelope--with the lyrics inside
as a means to document/confirm ownership of a song.

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loupgarous
09-16-2009

Rated 0 
The Wikipedia article didn't really quote the article in Entertainment Weekly, but paraphrased it.

For those of you interested in the actual quote from the actual article:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1174152_3,00.html

"Tucked in the woods behind Stone Row, down a narrow path many students never notice, sits a one-room, octagonal stone structure known as the Observatory. It is there that Fagen most wants to visit. ''I used to practice here,'' he explains, gazing around the room, which, it turns out, was converted into an office in the early '70s. This isolated space was one of Fagen's most cherished escapes. ''There was nothing in there but a grand piano,'' he says. ''I had wonderful hours in here practicing scales, things that no one else should hear, you know? I'd write tunes in here, too. And if you were rejected by someone you were in love with, you could scream. I was always in love with someone [who] ignored me completely. That was my Bard experience. There was a Sorrows of Young Werther vibe about it.''

One such unrequited crush might have been a professor's young wife named Rikki Ducornet, whose first name will be familiar to Steely Dan fans. Fagen won't admit it — he's always been extremely reluctant to explain his songs — but it's easy to imagine that Ducornet was the inspiration for one of his band's most famous tunes, ''Rikki Don't Lose That Number.'' ''I remember we had a great conversation and he did suggest I call him, which never happened,'' says Ducornet, now a well-regarded novelist and artist. ''But I know he thought I was cute. And I was cute,'' she laughs. ''I was very tempted to call him, but I thought it might be a bit risky. I was very enchanted with him and with the music. It was so evident from the get-go that he was wildly talented. Being a young faculty wife and, I believe, pregnant at the time, I behaved myself, let's say. Years later, I walked into a record store and heard his voice and thought, 'That's Fagen. And that's my name!'''

Fagen would have better luck with a former Bard student named Libby Titus, whom he encountered on campus in 1966 and married 27 years later. And that's hardly his only happy memory of the school. ''I was coming straight from a housing development in New Jersey, so it was great,'' he says. ''I loved the teachers and the girls, you know. I had friends here. Probably the only time in my life,'' he says with a laugh, ''that I actually had friends.'' "

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loupgarous
09-16-2009

Rated 0 
The story I read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikki_Don%27t_Lose_That_Number

was that "Rikki" was Rikki Ducornet, the wife of an instructor at Bard, where Don Fagen had both gone to school.

From the Wikipedia article,

"In the March 24, 2006 (2006-03-24) issue of Entertainment Weekly, in an article titled "Back to Annandale", it was revealed that Rikki Ducornet was the apparent inspiration for the song due to a friendship songwriter Donald Fagen had with Ducornet while he attended Bard College. Ducornet was pregnant and married at the time, but recalls Fagen did give her his phone number at a college party while attending Bard and said that she believed she was the subject of the song. Fagen would not confirm the story.[2]"

citation 2 for this article is the Entertainment Weekly article, available on their Web site:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1174152,00.html

if anyone's interested.

I would assume that Entertainment Weekly's lawyers wouldn't let them print this if it were substantially untrue.

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MichaelKleinman
08-23-2009

Rated 0 
My dad told me that a number is another name for a joint.
they probably mixed the love theme with the drug theme to create poetic tension and juxtaposition.
I've been checking out a lot of Dan songs on this website and that seems to be the general theme that I've gotten from a lot of them.

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mumajor
07-24-2009

Rated 0 
Here's something to muddle all conclusions:

The person of the title is Rikki Ducornet, see page 3 of:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1174152,00.html

The short story is that Rikki was the young, pregnant wife of a professor at Bard that DF had a flirtation with.


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triviabuff
07-17-2009

Rated 0 
I was told by a person who knew the former Manager of Steely Dan. The Manager's name was Rikki Ricks(I am not sure I spelled the last name correctly). Anyway Rikki(female) had a bad habit of losing important phone numbers needed to book events for the band. Out of their frustration Steely Dan wrote the song Rikki don't lose that number.

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jdiggerboyx1
03-31-2009

Rated 0 

BEFORE:i haven't even heard this song for years. so lets look at the basics. i did howevr just end up buying thep retzel logic cd to chekc it out.

so we got a humber. and some line saying you are not my mind.

it is not about drugs. but of course whatevr we think, the rreeal meaning is known by the artists.

so all in all, it may be a guy trying to show the girl that even though they have differences, don't lose the number, maybe we can make it work out. let me listen and i will give the after interptretation

AFTER: i really think it is about friends. so they are going different ways, who knows, maybe it changed suddenly, their frinedship. anywa, don't lose that number, i am your friend, and when you begin to feel better afain, i will still be your friend.

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RikABaDo
02-04-2009

Rated 0 
I Really Like This Song Because Thats My Real Name [Rikki [Yes Its a Girl Name]. Proof If Needed]

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austinbarry
01-10-2009

Rated 0 
I can remember following a long-running newsnet discussion about this song - mainly about "send it in a letter to yourself". Obviously if feran411's story is correct, this would explain it. Some people that "number" meant song, in which mailing it to yourself would be a way of establishing a date of authorship (there was considerable discussion on whither this was a valid way of establishing a date). Then again, sending a letter to yourself is a way of keeping something safe for a day or so - presumably you would have cooled down a little when you receive the letter back.

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mightymurid
08-09-2008

Rated 0 
hm...I always liked to think of this as a song about a woman leaving porn or prostitution, but the gay theme seems a lot more convincing. "you tell yourself you're not my kind" - that's HUGE. "driving on slow hand road" - sure sounds like furtive reststopping to me.

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ferran411
07-04-2008

Rated 0 
The end to the mystery. My father has been telling me story's about when he was a kid since i can remember. One story in particular has never changed. This story i will share with you.

When my father was 18 (1972) he was hitchhiking across America. In the desert just outside of LA a young man stopped and picked up my father and took him in town to his house. The man told my father his name was Walter Becker and was in a band, but never told my father the name of the band. My father told Walter his name was Ricky, even though it was not. Ricky was the name of one of the neighbor kids my father had grown up with. Walter cooked my father dinner and allowed him the use of his shower. They sat around for sometime talking, Walter played the guitar for a bit and then my father felt his time to go had come, as Walters constant flirtation was a bit troublesome to a young straight male. So Walter gave my father a lift to the freeway but before my father got out he gave him a piece of paper that said "Give walter a call..." with his phone #. He then told my father the next time he saw a post box to mail it home so when he returned he would have it and could give him a call. My father never did call.

2 years later "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was released. It wasn't till sometime after that my father realized that Walter Becker was the guitarist in Steely Dan and the song was about him. I have asked myself many times if this story is true and my father swears that it's the truth. After much research i have yet to find anything to confirm or falsify this besides the fact that over the past 20 years not a single detail has changed in the story.

I suppose the only person that could confirm this would be Walter Becker himself if he in fact remembers the young boy he picked up in the desert outside of L.A. in 1972.

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ray_killeen
06-13-2008

Rated 0 
"number" = joint?

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1 Reply
myfriendvlad
06-05-2008

Rated 0 
I agree with sydnemarc, to me it sounds like Rikki is a guy newly discovering he is gay. The spelling of the name could be to obfuscate the meaning of the song. "Our little wild time", "you kind of scared yourself", "you tell yourself you're not my kind", "you could have a change of heart" all seem to fit with this meaning, IMO.

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rikkitd
05-15-2008

Rated 0 
its not about a guy or a gay guy or whatever. its about a girl. my name is rikki and i'm a girl. that is the girl spelling. ricky is guy, "rikki" even though its a rarer spelling, is purely girl!

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tigershits
02-23-2008

Rated 0 
I think that the song means that the guy in the songs wife has alshiemers because where it says tell yourself your not my kind but really you do not know your mind and he wants her to send the number in a letter incase she gets better at home

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Danfan
02-19-2008

Rated 0 
Apparently Horace Silver wasn't pleased at them using his bass line in this song which sort of surprises me. Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter expressed their admiration to these guys quite a lot. I must say this song has a very unusual chord sequence (as did most of them). Musicians I meet often comment on how strange it is to play bizarre jazz chords and change key unexpectedly. I pity the cover bands! Right on!

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shanef
02-08-2008

Rated 0 
Naw, there's always double meaning to a Dan song.

Because Fagen says it's a straight-forward love song, doesn't make it so. People, dont' be so naive. You think Becker or Fagen is always being honest with you? President Clinton said he didn't have sexual relatons with Monica L, but he obviously did. People LIE.

Rickie Lee Jones - not Rikki Lee Jones. Her name is spelled, "Rickie." If it's about her, they mispelled her name.

There's obvious references to Clapton and Derringer.

I'd say there's lots of references mixed in this song - it doesn't necessarily have to be black and white, about one thing. They could have interspersed many different ideas into the song, you know, how someone writes, say, a book, and takes many different things from their lives and puts them into one composite incidence or character, etc?

And, of course, "Number" is another term for a joint...

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sydnemarc
10-13-2007

Rated 0 
I've always thought this song was about a gay man, but not that he was necessarily married. I've always felt that the song is saying that Rikki, the guy, has just realized he's gay, had his first encounter with another man who is secure in his sexuality and is now scared of being homosexual. To me, it sounds as though the man that Rikki slept with, etc. is telling him that he'd be around for him if he ever became more confident in his sexuality.

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cbmira01
07-05-2007

Rated 0 
I thought I had this song figured out years ago as about a girl who digs group sex (or swinging, or something else hard core), but tries to deny it to herself. The singer sees through all that, and knows that once she's had some time to cool off, she'll want to know how to get back in with the group. Swinger clubs are almost impossible to patch into without the proper contact information.

Here's the internal evidence:
- "We could stay inside and play games..."; swingers will often refer to sex as play (via wiki)
- "I got a friend in town, he's heard your name...", through the club network.
- "You tell yourself you're not my kind..."; Rikki knows what the singer is, but she doesn't want to admit what she is.

Actually, even under this (outlandish?) interpretation, the song is very tender, respectful, and insightful. Rikki is lucky to have a friend who is so understanding.

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rainwalk
03-21-2007

Rated 0 
Always thought this was a drug dealer talking to a customer who decided to kick. The dealer is telling the person to keep his number, becasue he knows he'll be back.

But I gotta admit - the Rikki Lee Jones thing sounds like a slam dunk. Not used to Dan tunes actually being about what they sound like they're about!

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WritingIsMyReligion
08-31-2006

Rated 0 
Fagen has said that "Rikki" is one of the few 'Dan songs that is just as it appears: a guy is begging some girl he likes to take his phone number. No double meaning here.

There have been rumors that the wife of a professor at Bard College, where Fagen and Becker went, was named Rikki, and one of the guys fell for her.

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dahe24
08-30-2006

Rated 0 
I thought that the two main guys of Steely Dan attended a boarding school and the headmaster's daughter was named Rikki, who one of them had a crush on. Could be wrong, though.

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criticalmass
07-21-2006

Rated 0 
and they even spelled her name properly, as in RIKKI, not Ricky or whatever.

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criticalmass
07-21-2006

Rated 0 
This song was written for Rikki Lee Jones.
- stated in an interview by donald and walter in the book "songwriters on Songwriting" by Paul Zollo.

She's a badass songwriter in her own right, and aapparently they had a falling-out.
However, that is the son meaning- no obfuscation from don and walter -the answer is plain and simple - it was written for rikki lee jones.

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