"Maggie May" almost wasn't

A B-Side ends up changing Rod Stewart's world

It was actually quite a bit later in his remarkably long recording career that Rod Stewart got around to covering “Some Guys Have All The Luck,” which was, appropriately, yet another MTV hit for the shaggy-haired singer.

The irony is the theme of that song could well have been applied to Stewart’s entire career. It was another song of his - “Maggie May” - that changed his world and for some of us, ours, too. Not only did it almost not make the album, it was stuck on the B-side of the first single, “Reason To Believe,” destined to be forgotten.

So how did a near-outtake end up catapulting a 5:46 single (I didn’t even have to look up the time, I played that single so often) to the No. 1 spot? It’s quite a saga. As noted by the picture, it was some 55 years ago that Mercury Records released a single from Rod’s third solo album, “Every Picture Tells A Story.”

Mercury record folks thought the single should be Rod’s cover of Tim Hardin’s “Reason To Believe.” The B-Side was the album afterthought, “Maggie May.” Stewart later explained that because the song didn’t have a hook or a chorus, it wasn’t even going to be included on the album. But the record company thought the album was a bit short on songs, asked if he had anything else. Rod offered up “Maggie May.”

How we got to hear it is told on the website “Forgotten Hits.” A Cleveland disc jockey named Mitch Michaels for whatever reason, decided to play the B side of the single on WMMS instead of the A-Side. The phone lines lit up.

Later, Michaels happened to run into Stewart backstage after a concert. The two took a limo ride together, Stewart asked him about the album and the single and Michaels told him “Maggie May” was lighting up the phone lines.

A bit later, the single was reissued with “Maggie May” as the A-Side and it took off across the globe. It topped the charts in the USA for five weeks, the UK singles chart for five weeks, too and was the No. 2 record for 1971. Rod Stewart was one of the very few artists to have a No. 1 album, “Every Picture Tells A Story” and a No. 1 single here and in England at the same time.

Rod told interviewer Dan Rather he based “Maggie” on his brief (very brief, he said) encounter with an older woman at a jazz festival. But the clever way Rod constructed the lyrics gave this old English teacher a chance to play one of his favorite songs in class and teach the kids about an unreliable narrator. Rod does a masterful job of faking us - and himself - out. But you have to read it closely.

From the opening lines, “Wake up, Maggie, I think I got somethin’ to say to you
It’s late September and I really should be back at school. I know I keep you amused, but I feel I’m being used. Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more…” it sounds as if he’s had enough and is ready to walk out. But he doesn’t.

He continues having this imaginary conversation - we imagine Maggie is sleeping - as he gives his reasons - “You led me away from home just to save you from being alone. You stole my heart and that’s what really hurts.”

Then the whole age-thing kicks in. As well as the complexities of love. “The mornin’ sun when it’s in your face really shows your age. But that don’t worry me none, in my eyes, you’re everything. I laughed at all of your jokes, my love you didn’t need to coax
Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more.”

I played this song over and over and over. My record player had a thing where if you left the arm over, it would keep playing the same single. And trust me, I probably listened to this one song more than any other. Why?

Maybe it was this next line that somehow connected with me as this shy, date-less, high school senior who had three different girls ask if I’d take them to the prom. Of course, I said “No” to each one. I was chicken.

“All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand…” A girl as a friend? What a concept! By this point in my life, I did talk to girls. But date one? Without a car? Or a driver’s license?

Of course, as a teenage boy, I loved it when Rod got to the good stuff… “But you turned into a lover, and mother, what a lover, you wore me out. All you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning, kick me in the head. Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more.”

As he goes back to what he’d said before, blaming her on the one hand but at the same time, admitting he was stuck, the truth keeps creeping in. Love is like that.

“You led me away from home ‘cause you didn't wanna be alone. You stole my heart, I couldn't leave you if I tried.” You could call that line foreshadowing, right?

So Rod considers his alternatives if he does go. “I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school. Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playin’ pool. Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helpin’ hand…”

Then he gets mean. “Oh, Maggie, I wished I’d never seen your face.” That would hurt, so you know he didn’t really say it! “You made a first-class fool out of me. But I’m as blind as a fool can be. You stole my heart, but I love you anyway.”

Then the brilliant construction of the song really drives it home. There’s a great, understated Ron Wood guitar solo, a sweeping mandolin piece from Ray Jackson of the British folk-rock group Lindisfarne (Rod famously forgot his name in the liner notes and just wrote "mandolin player in Lindisfarne"!) raising the stakes for a big, dramatic finish. And what a finish!

He’s hooked. We know it. He knows it. And he’s got to have this big finish to get it all out of his system. And ours.

Micky Waller’s drums thump and we hear him try to talk himself out of it as the song winds down. But look how that last line, that unreliable narrator who may have convinced you at first, he was splitting, now admits, he isn’t. Not yet anyway.

“Maggie, I wished I’d never seen your face. I’ll get on the way home one of these days…
Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

A soulful scream, letting us know he isn’t going anywhere. The way he stretches out “day-aaysss” Not yet, anyway.

Just a brilliantly written, superbly sung, dramatically constructed song that doesn’t need a chorus. If it hadn’t have been for a Cleveland disc jockey, who maybe played the B-Side by mistake, we don’t really know, “Maggie May” might not ever have found the airwaves and made Rod Stewart an international star or burned itself into my brain for several years. My students loved it, too.

Some guys have all the luck, indeed. Thanks, Rod. And “Maggie” I guess.

Does this look like a guy who wouldn’t go to a prom? Author John Nogowski writes often about music in his free Substack, now entering Year Three. He’s written books about Bob Dylan and Neil Young, two books on baseball (“Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out” and about his experience teaching Mark Twain’s “Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn” at a struggling Florida minority high school. He also regularly contributes to the Hartford Courant. His books are available on Amazon. He’s currently at work on a book about Bruce Springsteen, whom he first saw in concert in Providence the day he finished the “Born To Run” album.