Day After Day #96: Stay With Me

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Stay With Me (1971)

When it comes to rock singers of the Baby Boomer generation, few are more talented than Rod Stewart. But talent isn't everything. There's something to be said for decision-making ability, and it's safe to say ol' Rod has made some interesting ones throughout his career. Early in career, though, he could do no wrong.

Stewart had singing gigs in his early 20s with the Dimensions and Long John Baldry, but it was when he joined the Jeff Beck Group in 1967 that he started to really make a name for himself. With Stewart, Beck and guitarist Ronnie Wood, the band had one of the hottest lineups around at a time when their contemporaries were Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. 

But Stewart and Wood only lasted two albums before venturing out and joining the remaining members of the Small Faces, who were without a singer and guitarist after Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie (keeping up with all this?). The new group was called Faces, with Ian McLagan on keyboards, Ronnie Lane on bass and Kenney Jones on drums. The band's sound was blues and R&B-oriented rock and its first two albums, 1970's First Step and 1971's Long Player, didn't have any hits and didn't sell well. 

Confusing matters at the time was the fact that Stewart also had a separate solo deal and would use the Faces as his backup band on some songs released on his solo albums. While Faces' Long Player stiffed, Stewart's 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story went to #1 in the U.S. and U.K. on the strength of hit singles "Maggie May," the title track and a cover of the Temptations' "(I Know) I'm Losing You," which featured the Faces. There was some grumbling that Stewart was saving the best Faces material for his solo albums.

But later in 1971, Faces would release A Nod's as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse and this time around proved the charm, getting up to #6 on the Billboard 200 and #2 in the U.K. No doubt thanks to Stewart's solo success, the Faces broke through with "Stay With Me," a ripping rocker that features Wood's bloozy guitar and Stewart's raspy voice put to great effect. Lane and Jones were a formidable rhythm section and McLagan's keys swept up everything in a swirling haze. The band was tight yet boozy and adventurous as Stewart sang about a one-night stand.

"In the morning don't say you love me/'Cause I'll only kick you out the door/I know your name is Rita 'cause your perfume's smellin' sweeter/Since when I saw you down on the floor."

Written with Wood, the song careens all over the place like the drunken protagonist as he implores his partner for the evening to stick around.

"You won't need too much persuadin'/I don't mean to sound degrading/But with a face like that you got nothing to laugh about/Red lips, hair and fingernails/I hear you're a mean old Jezebel/Let's go upstairs and read my tarot cards, come on, honey/Stay with me, stay with me/For tonight, you'd better stay with me."

The song was Faces' biggest hit by far, getting to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the U.K. Singles Chart and #4 in Canada.

As they approached work on their fourth album, Faces was a band divided. Stewart was becoming a solo star and missed the first two weeks of recording sessions, so Ronnie Lane took a greater role in developing the material. Although the album's biggest hit was its title track, "Ooh La La," which was sung by Ronnie Wood in a rare lead vocal turn (the song would make a comeback two decades later when it was featured in movie Rushmore). Stewart slammed the album after it was released and Lane soon left. The band toured for the album but after releasing a live album in 1974, split up.

Wood replaced Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones, where he continues to play to this day. Lane went on to a solo career and recorded an album with Pete Townshend; he was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and inspired a charity concert in the early '80s. Jones replaced the late Keith Moon in the Who. 

As for Stewart, well, he continued to have success as a solo artist, although the quality of that post-Faces work is debatable. He was one of the first rock artists to go disco, and then moved on to release a lot of forgettable pop schlock over the next few decades. His last few decades have been spent doing standards and occasionally reuniting with former bands for occasional shows. But when you watch old clips of the Faces (see below; "Stay With Me" is at the 29-minute mark), I think you'll agree he was pretty amazing in those early years. I can't begrudge the guy for going for the easy money, but damn.