Every Picture Tells a Story

Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

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Music CD Cover

Artist: Rod Stewart
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1998-03-31
Music Label: Island / Mercury
Soundtracks:

Every Picture Tells A Story
Seems Like A Long Time
That's All Right
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Maggie May
Mandolin Wind
(I Know) I'm Losing You
(Find A) Reason To Believe

Free Music Notes for Every Picture Tells a Story

Free Music Review: Maggie May Meets Shanghai Lil
Hit: 5 Stars

Don't ask me why I remember this, but I recall some critic back in the day describing the music of Rod Stewart by citing two "untranslatable" terms from other languages. One was the Spanish "macho," which has longsince become part of our own language and probably needs no further commentary--except maybe to note that, in Stewart's case, the machismo (if that's what it is) is certainly an ironic and self-effacing brand of same. The other term the reviewer mentioned was the German word "gemuetlich" (or maybe it was the noun form, "Gemuetlichkeit," hard to say). I was only beginning my study of German at the time and I remember being delighted to see a German "concept" somehow linked to good ol' rock'n'roll, but if my knowledge of the language had been better then, I might have questioned the use of the term (roughly translatable as "cozy" or "comfy" or BOTH)to describe MUSIC or (even more specious) the person MAKING the music.

But then again...music is all about "atmosphere," and at its best, it carves a psychically habitable "space" out of sound, so maybe "gemuetlich" isn't such an inapt term after all. If the soundscape created here were literal space, well, hey, I'd consider renting a room in it. It really would be as comfy cozy and downright "gemuetlich" an abode as you could ever hope for really.

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY may be THE textbook example of how a collection of an almost ragtag mix of greater and lesser tracks coming together to form a perfect whole. Yes, "Maggie May" is the centerpiece, with "Mandolin Wind" and the title track right up there as the tunes fans remember whistfully (and/or still play obsessively) some forty years on. But they fit better here than on any of the subsequent "best of" repackagings that have cropped up over the years. There is an overarching SOUND to the entire album--and it really IS an album in the old sense of the word--that's compelling in an uniquely ambling shambling kind of way. The band sounds like a bunch of merry pranksters with no qualms about cribbing from every conceivable genre and succeed in coming up with something new and yet very familiar. They make it look and sound easy, but you know it's not.

You can't really say that every track was actually inspired. Stewart and Co. admittedly put their own distinctive mark on a classic bit of Americana like "That's All Right, Mama" or a Motown staple like "(I Know) I'm Losing You," but the former still sounds like a bit of a throwaway and the the latter more like a "something/anything" excuse to rock out a bit on an otherwise low key album. But so what? In the larger context, they work pretty well and achieve a flow that may well be a kind of happy accident, ultimately, but it's there. It all really does all hang together.

Probably, the only track I really take issue with to this day is the snippet of "Amazing Grace" that serves as a kind of interlude between "That's All Right, Mama" and Rod's take on the early Dylan tune "Tomorrow's A Long Time." I mean, why bother? I want to hear the whole song or nothing at all. Sounds to me like he's just getting warmed up and it's over. Not a song you want to goof around with. Such interludes became something of hallmark of Rod Stewart albums in the 70s, by the way, with the little Baroque intro to "Maggie Mae" (NOT included on the single) as another--more successful--example.

I did a little Googling around to see if I couldn't actually locate the "macho/gemuetlich" review somewhere online. I had thought it might be on the Rolling Stone site, but no. There were a number of gushing reviews of all of Rod the Mod's early albums (before the great fall from grace of the disco era Rod) by critics whose names I remember from my misspent youth reading rock rags. What a hoot to read the raves from writers like John Mendelsohn, Langdon Winner (GREAT name) and Greil Marcus. Expectations were sure high back then--with Mendelsohn writing, for instance, that Rod Stewart was "capable of saving souls." That genteman must have chafed mightily six or eight years later when confronted with the likes of "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy." Moreover, for good or ill, I don't think that either contemporary critics OR fans think in such ultimate terms nowadays.

Maybe we should. Or at least, we should maybe be trying to get a little more of that Gemuetlichkeit thing going on.

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