Released April 25, 1974 Recorded 1973 | Format 7" single Genre Soft rock, soul jazz | |
B-side "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" Length 3:58 (Single version)
4:30 (Album version) | ||
"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is a single released in 1974 by rock/jazz rock group Steely Dan and the opening track of their third album Pretzel Logic. It was the most successful single of the group's career, peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1974.
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The song features Jim Gordon on drums, as does the bulk of the Pretzel Logic album. The guitar solo is by Jeff "Skunk" Baxter who would soon go on to join The Doobie Brothers.
Victor Feldman's flapamba (a variant of the marimba) introduction to the song, which opens the album, is cut from the original ABC single version. The MCA single reissue (backed with "Pretzel Logic") includes the flapamba intro but fades out just before the actual end of the track. The introductory riff is an almost direct copy of the intro of Horace Silver's jazz classic "Song for My Father".
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 inspiration for the song, due to her friendship with songwriter Donald Fagen while he attended Bard College. Ducornet was pregnant and married at the time, but recalled that Fagen did give her his phone number at a college party at Bard and said that she believed she was the subject of the song. Fagen, however, would not confirm the story.