Artists have been known to play number games within their lyrics from time to time. Only some singers are able to carry metaphorical word problems but rappers love to implement math in a bar or two.

Rikki herself, however, commented in 1998 on the meaning behind the song and offered a more philosophical approach rather than assuming the single to be just an unrequited love song. “Philosophically ...

LOS ANGELES — Tom Lehrer, the popular song satirist who lampooned marriage, politics, racism and the Cold War, then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching math at Harvard and other ...

Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” is hooked on the two-note bassline of Horace Silver’s jazz classic “Song for My Father”. Silver sometimes believed that the eight-bar phrase of his ...