"Every Picture Tells a Story" is a song written by Rod Stewart and

Ronnie Wood Ronald David Wood (born 1 June 1947) is an English rock musician, best known as an official member of the Rolling Stones since 1975, as well as a member of Faces and the Jeff Beck Group. Wood began his career in 1964, playing guitar with a ...

and initially released as the title track of Stewart's 1971 album ''

Every Picture Tells a Story ''Every Picture Tells a Story'' is the third studio album by Rod Stewart. It was released on 28 May 1971. It incorporates hard rock, folk, and blues styles. It went to number one on both the UK and US charts and finished third in the Jazz ...

''. It has since become one of Stewart's signature songs and released on numerous Stewart compilation and live albums, including '' The Best of Rod Stewart'', '' Storyteller – The Complete Anthology: 1964–1990'' and '' Unplugged...and Seated''. It was released as a single in Spain, Portugal and Japan, backed with "

Reason to Believe "Reason to Believe" is a song written, composed, and first recorded by American folk singer Tim Hardin in 1965. It has since been recorded by artists including Bobby Darin in 1966, Karen Dalton also in 1966, Glen Campbell in 1968, the Nitty Gritty ...

". It has also been covered by

the Georgia Satellites The Georgia Satellites are an American Southern rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. They achieved mainstream success with their 1986 self-titled debut album, featuring their best-known single "Keep Your Hands to Yourself", which peaked at No. 2 on ...

on their 1986 album ''

Georgia Satellites The Georgia Satellites are an American Southern rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. They achieved mainstream success with their 1986 self-titled debut album, featuring their best-known single " Keep Your Hands to Yourself", which peaked at No. 2 o ...

'' and by

Robin McAuley Robin McAuley (born 20 January 1953) is an Irish singer. He is best known as the vocalist for the rock band McAuley Schenker Group from 1986 to 1993, which saw the band release three studio albums: '' Perfect Timing'', '' Save Yourself'', '' M.S ...

on ''Forever Mod: A Tribute to Rod Stewart''.

Background and structure

The lyrics of "Every Picture Tells a Story" form a first person narrative of the singer finding adventures with women all over the world but eventually returning home after having learned some moral lessons. Locations of his adventures include Paris, Rome and Peking. In his review of the album in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', John Mendelsohn noted that this song "does rock with ferocity via a simple but effective seven-note ascension/five-note descension riff that Waller cleverly punctuates with a halved-time bass-drum-against-snare lick." The rhythm is loose throughout most of the song, although it tightens in the coda. Stewart biographers Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred describe the music as "a mess — unbalanced and shoddily thrown together," although the "vocals pull the song out of trouble." Despite being a hard rock song, the song primarily uses acoustic instruments, although guitarist Ron Wood does use an

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

occasionally.

Pete Sears Peter Roy Sears (born 27 May 1948) is an English rock musician. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock o ...

played the acoustic piano. The song's music incorporates many elements.

Toby Creswell Toby Creswell (born 21 May 1955) is an Australian music journalist and pop-culture writer. He was editor of ''Rolling Stone'' (Australia) and a founding editor of '' Juice''. In 1986, he co-wrote, with Martin Fabinyi, his first book, ''Too Mu ...

describes the opening guitar theme as reflective and melancholy. As the guitar opening fades, the drums played by

Micky Waller Michael Waller (6 September 1941 – 29 April 2008) was an English drummer, who played with many of the biggest names on the UK rock and blues scene, after he became a professional musician in 1960. In addition to being a member, albeit sometim ...

crash primitively before Stewart begins to sing. Greil Marcus also praises the acoustic guitar parts that are played after each verse and the drum roll after the first verse. According to Stewart, he found the mandolin and

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

players for this song and for "Maggie May" in a restaurant in London.

Maggie Bell Margaret Bell (born 12 January 1945 in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish rock vocalist. She came to fame as co-lead vocalist of the blues-rock group Stone the Crows, and was described as the UK's closest counterpart to American sing ...

and

Long John Baldry John William "Long John" Baldry (12 January 1941 – 21 July 2005) was an English musician and actor. In the 1960s, he was one of the first British vocalists to sing the blues in clubs and shared the stage with many British musicians including ...

provide energetic

harmony vocals Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical c ...

, including the line "She claimed that it just ain't natural" in response to Stewart's line "Shanghai Lil never used the

pill Pill or The Pill may refer to: Drugs * Pill (pharmacy), referring to anything small for a specific dose of medicine * "The Pill", a general nickname for the combined oral contraceptive pill Film and television * ''The Pill'' (film), a 2011 fil ...

." Allmusic's Sullivan describes the song as "just plain visceral -- so much so that

t is T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...

better heard than described" and that it represents six minutes of "defining rock & roll." The song's lyrics are entirely free-form in that they do not follow any consistent rhythmic meter and read almost like prose. Rhyming only appears occasionally and irregularly, sometimes as

internal rhyme In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme. Internal rhyme schemes can be denoted ...

s within a line ("On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry", "Shanghai Lil never used the pill"). There are somewhat more near-rhymes between lines (inferior/mirror, ways/same, stampede/tea, funk/luck, attraction/sanction), but these too are unpredictable and occasional. The lyrics even exhibit occasional elements of subtle vowel alliteration ("I firmly believed that I didn't need anyone but me"). Stewart's confident performance, however, renders these shortcomings of rhyme and rhythm unnoticeable to the listener; the song sounds like it does have lyrical rhyme and rhythm.

Analysis and reception

In the ''

Rolling Stone Album Guide ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...

'', critic Paul Evans described "Every Picture Tells a Story" and "

Maggie May "Maggie May" is a song co-written by singer Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton, and performed by Rod Stewart on his album '' Every Picture Tells a Story'', released in 1971. In 2004, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked the song number 130 on its list of ...

", another song off the ''Every Picture Tells a Story'' album, as Rod Stewart's and Ron Wood's "finest hour—happy lads wearing their hearts on their sleeves." Music critic

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biography Marcus wa ...

regards the song as "Rod Stewart's greatest performance."

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

critic

Denise Sullivan Denise Sullivan is an American music journalist, cultural worker and reporter, author of several music biographies including the critically acclaimed music-history book, ''Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip-hop'', and editor of t ...

commented that some of the lyrics are racist and sexist (e.g., describing an Asian woman as a "slit-eyed lady"), and that the song "is a real nugget from a brief period in time when rock singers didn't worry about what it meant to be rude -- in fact, the ruder and cruder, the better." However, a live version of the song performed by Stewart in 1992, 21 years after the original album version was released, skips a complete verse containing some particularly unkind and crude references to women, as well as a self-deprecating reference: "I firmly believed that I/Didn't need anyone but me/I sincerely felt I was so complete/Look how wrong you can be/The women I've known I wouldn't let tie my shoe/They wouldn't give you the time of day/But the slit-eyed lady knocked me off my feet/God I was so glad I found her". Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the song as "devilishly witty." The lyrics begin with a reference to the theme of self-discovery: :''Spent some time feeling inferior'' :''Standing in front of my mirror'' :''Combed my hair in a thousand ways'' :''But I came out looking just the same''

In other media

"Every Picture Tells a Story" was used in the

Cameron Crowe Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at '' Rolling Stone'' magazine, for w ...

movie ''

Almost Famous ''Almost Famous'' is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, and Patrick Fugit. It tells the story of a teenage journalist writing for ''Rolling Stone ...

'' in a scene where main characters William and Penny walk through the halls of a hotel. It was also included on the soundtrack of the video game '' Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned''. The song was also referenced in

Jayne Anne Phillips Jayne Anne Phillips (born July 19, 1952) is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Education Phillips graduated from West Virginia University, earning a B.A. in 1974, and later g ...

' short story "What It Takes to Keep a Young Girl Alive." While the story's character Sue is lying in bed in the dark "Rod Stewart, scratchy and loud, combed his hair in a thousand different ways and came out looking just the same." Greil Marcus uses the reference to the song in "What It Takes to Keep a Young Girl Alive" to muse on what makes a good record and why "Every Picture Tells a Story" is a good record, i.e., a good record is one that "entering a person's life, can enable that person to live more intensely — as, whatever else it does, 'Every Picture Tells a Story' does for Jayne Anne Phillips' Sue."

Personnel

* Rod Stewart – lead vocals, backing vocals *

– electric guitar,

twelve-string guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...

, bass guitar, backing vocals *

– piano *

– drums *

Ian McLagan Ian Patrick McLagan (; 12 May 1945 – 3 December 2014) was an English keyboardist, best known as a member of the rock bands Small Faces and Faces. He also collaborated with the Rolling Stones and led his own band from the late 1970s. He was i ...

– Hammond organ, backing vocals *

, Mateus Rose,

Kenney Jones Kenneth Thomas "Kenney" Jones (born 16 September 1948) is an English drummer best known for his work in the groups Small Faces, Faces, and the Who. Jones was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Small Faces/Faces ...

Ronnie Lane Ronald Frederick Lane (1 April 1946 – 4 June 1997) was an English musician and songwriter who is best known as the bass guitarist and founding member of Small Faces (1965–69) and subsequently Faces (1969–73). Lane formed Small Faces ...

– backing vocals

References

{{Authority control 1971 singles Rod Stewart songs Songs written by Rod Stewart The Georgia Satellites songs Songs written by Ronnie Wood Song recordings produced by Rod Stewart Mercury Records singles 1971 songs