Could the R-E-A-L Rikki please stand up (and give us a call...)

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

Back in 1974 the song Rikki Don't Lose That Number from Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic was a big hit.
Who Rikki really was and if she/he really existed has been debated.

In the article Back To Annandale published in Entertainment Weekly in 2006 Rikki might be the wife of a professor:

"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!'"

The very same Rikki Ducornet pops up - pic and all - in an article named
Meet Springsteen's Rosalita and rock muses Rikki and Sharona, too published today by Daily News.

So is Rikki about Rikki Ducornet? Or maybe about guitarist Rick Derringer? Or is it a tale of gay lovers ... or some other explanation presented as fact? We don't know and Donald and Walter won't tell.

More on Rikki Ducornet and her writing can be found here.