Every Picture Tells a Story (song)
"Every Picture Tells a Story" | ||||
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Single by Rod Stewart | ||||
from the album Every Picture Tells a Story | ||||
B-side | "Reason to Believe" | |||
Released | 1972 | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 5:59 | |||
Label | Mercury | |||
Songwriter(s) | Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood | |||
Producer(s) | Rod Stewart | |||
Rod Stewart singles chronology | ||||
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"Every Picture Tells a Story" is a song written by
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.[1][4] Locations of his adventures include Paris, Rome and Peking.
In his review of the album in Rolling Stone, 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."[4] The rhythm is loose throughout most of the song, although it tightens in the coda.[5] 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."[6] Despite being a hard rock song, the song primarily uses acoustic instruments, although guitarist Ron Wood does use an electric guitar occasionally.[1] Pete Sears played the acoustic piano. The song's music incorporates many elements. Toby Creswell describes the opening guitar theme as reflective and melancholy.[7] As the guitar opening fades, the drums played by Micky Waller crash primitively before Stewart begins to sing.[8][7] Greil Marcus also praises the acoustic guitar parts that are played after each verse and the drum roll after the first verse.[5]
According to Stewart, he found the
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 rhymes 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
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".[10]
Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the song as "devilishly witty."[8] The lyrics begin with a reference to the theme of self-discovery:[7]
- 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 movie Almost Famous in a scene where main characters William and Penny walk through the halls of a hotel.[1][11] It was also included in the opening scene of the third episode of Mayor of Kingstown and was also featured on the soundtrack of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned. The song was also referenced in Jayne Anne Phillips' short story "What It Takes to Keep a Young Girl Alive."[5] 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."[5] 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."[5]
Personnel
- Rod Stewart – lead vocals, backing vocals
- Ronnie Wood – electric guitar, twelve-string guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals
- Pete Sears – piano
- Micky Waller – drums
- Ian McLagan – Hammond organ, backing vocals
- Long John Baldry, Maggie Bell, Mateus Rose, Kenney Jones, Ronnie Lane – backing vocals
References
- ^ Allmusic. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
- Allmusic. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
- Allmusic. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
- ^ a b Mendelsohn, J. (8 July 1971). "Every Picture Tells a Story Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-674-44577-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8065-2644-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-56025-915-2.
- ^ Allmusic. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8.
- ^ "Rod Stewart Vagabond Heart Tour, Live in Los Angeles 1992". YouTube. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
- ISBN 978-1-57322-356-0.