Rod Stewart – Every Picture tells a Story

Rod Stewart – Every Picture tells a Story

It was a bit sad when the turntable expired. We changed over to CD’s many years ago, but there are still hundreds of vinyl records. The cost of a replacement turntable was high, and the lovely new amplifier didn’t have a phono pre amp so there could be further expense. The old records were in dubious condition and might have been damaged by the old stylus before the turntable was retired.

I asked my wife to have a look at how many records needed to be replaced, and she decided that really, there weren’t that many. We could economically replace the important ones with new CD’s, which were mostly at bargain prices because the collection is so old.

One of the records my wife wanted to replace was an old compilation called Rockin’ Rod Stewart. I wasn’t too disappointed to find out that it wasn’t available.

Every Picture Tells a Story looked close enough, so I ordered a copy. When it showed up, it looked familiar, even though I had never owned it before. One of the kids from school must have had a copy.

It really is a gem. There are some great tracks. Lucinda Williams had played Every Picture at the end of her concert recently and I was ready to get into it again, Maggie May and Mandolin Wind had been on the other album.

You can really hear Ronnie Wood playing, and the album notes by Rod Stewart are a hoot. He credits the Mandolin playing to the Mandolin Player from Lindisfarne – can’t remember his name. Poor bloke.

But, the track with a memory is Reason to Believe. It had been popular when I was working at the part time job I had after school. There was a girl who had worked there, we had just been a bit playful, not close, and she didn’t work there for long. One of the older girls had teased me about asking this girl to go out.

I saw her again, once, a couple of years later as we walked past each other at the railway station without time to stop and talk. In the meeting of our eyes was the knowing that our moment had been and gone.

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