Music

You Need to Hear this Song #12

Heavy Rotation — Ev’ry Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart (Ev’ry Picture Tells a Story, 1971)

Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that one way or another got a lot of airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotation that a particular record got on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.

Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, though in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.

For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that you come back to from time to time and still feels just as good.

This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.

Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?

I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.

What song is in your head right now? Here’s one that won’t leave mine today:

#12 — Ev’ry Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart (Ev’ry Picture Tells a Story, 1971)

I really did try to add my voice to the Niagara of articles on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I couldn’t do it. Whatever I have to say has already been said, repeatedly.

So, I go to the same place I always do when I want to close the door on the world, for a minute: Music.

And where do I end up? With Rod Stewart, obviously.

At the same time that Rod Stewart was becoming Rod Stewart, he was in a band called Faces. Faces were a later incarnation of an earlier band called Small Faces and they did their best Rolling Stone impression over the course of 4 albums between 1970 and 1973.

The guitarist, Ronnie Wood, was so good at this that he eventually did join the Rolling Stones in 1975.

His time with Faces launched Rod Stewart into the stratosphere for decades, though he hit his high water mark in the late 70s and early 80s. These salad days created a faithful following that has kept him touring, mostly as a Vegas lounge crooner, through to today.

But anyway. While in Faces, Rod also recorded his own solo albums. The third of these, titled Ev’ry Picture Tells a Story, gave us the eponymous song in 1971. There would be literally hundreds more albums to follow, but for me, this song is as good as it would get for our Rod.

The song itself is a shambling, raw, messy rock and roll number that begins with a brief folky acoustic guitar intro, but at 00:16 already Rod’s unmistakable, raspy and belligerent voice kicks off.

It’s him telling the story of his then not so much younger days with a wink and a glimmer in his eye to match his shit eating grin. The same one he still has.

“Spent some time / feelin’ inferior / standin’ in front of the mirror”. A bit of introspection here, but there isn’t too much time for that, as he has a tale to weave. “Combed my hair in a thousand ways / But I came out looking just the same.” And with that, ends any more time feeling sorry for himself.

Because from here on in, it is just wine, women and song at various stops around the world. But first, some sage advice from his old man, “don’t lose your head / to a woman who will spend your bread.”

Uh oh.

A great drum fill at 1:06 connects part one to part 2 and now he’s in Paris, where he runs into arrest during the student riots of 1968. Ronnie Wood reminds us of his greatness with a bit of guitar work at 1:45.

Next he’s in Rome, where he “wasn’t getting enough / of the things that keep a young man alive”. One wonders what he could be getting at. He’ll have to get out of there before he gets in trouble with the Vatican. More Ronnie Wood at 2:34.

China is the next stop and it’s here that Rod finally finds the time to properly let his hair down. “On the Peking ferry / I was feeling merry”, nice bit of rhyme, that. “I fell in love with a slant-eyed lady”, unfortunate bit of racism, that.

If the part that comes after that (from 3:20 to 3:33), piano, guitar, bass and drums, ain’t the Stones reincarnated, I don’t know what is.

And now Rod has it all figured out. “I firmly believed that I / didn’t need anyone but me / I sincerely thought I was so complete / look how wrong you can be”. The young swashbuckler has grown up and realised some things about life.

“The women I’ve known / I wouldn’t let tie my shoes”. Unfortunate bit of misogyny, that, but this woman, in China has knocked him off his feet.

The classic line, in a song full of them though, is “I couldn’t quote ya no Dickens, Shelley or Keats / ’cause it’s all been said before” but plain and simple, “just make the best of the bad / and laugh it off / ya dinnae have to come here anyway”.

From here, the song moves to it’s logical crescendo, Rod repeatedly asking, with female background vocals and him whooping, “Ev’ry picture tells a story, don’t it?”

It does indeed, Rod. I was alive in the 70s and I imagine that if I remembered it as an adult, this song is what it would sound like.

If you liked #12 of this series, #11 is linked here. Links to the previous #1–10 are at the bottom of that article.

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