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“WE HAD THREE CHORDS AND WE
USED ALL OF THEM”
- ROD STEWART
I decided to make
a compilation of the Faces for the usual reason: an anally retentive desire to
put all my favourite tracks in one place. But even as I struggled over track
listing, running order etc. I realised the essential futility of the exercise.
Compilation or no, I would never stop listening to the original albums all the
way through – duff tracks, fillers and all. Why? Because I truly love the
Faces, and critical judgement is always made redundant by true love (thank
God). I persevered though, because it beats working, and a lot of my old vinyl
is getting a bit knackered, and it would be nice to lay copies on my friends –
some of whom still need to understand the truth of the beauty of the Faces’
slim legacy.
OK. The kind of
official line in the rock’n’roll history books is that the Faces were great
live but made mostly lousy records and that the solo albums Rod Stewart was
making at the same time were much better. Hmmm… I don’t think I’m insensitive
to nuance, let alone fine musicianship and good songwriting, so how come I’ve
always loved them all as a glorious whole? When I was a kid, “Long Player”
would go on after “Every Picture Tells A Story” and it would move me just as
much. But it’s true: Rod’s albums were as finely crafted as the Faces albums
were thrown together. That was part of the Faces appeal: they weren’t
struggling to complete a work of art, they were having themselves a fine old
time and they wanted to share it with us. A worthy motive. And more often than
not, they succeeded in getting it across.
But there was more
to them than just partying. The overwhelming fact that I want to emphasize is
how great and truly under-rated a songwriter was Ronnie Lane. His songs for the
Faces – whether sung by him or by Stewart – are like virtually nothing else in
the history of British music. Yes, he’s in the tradition of the other great
London songwriters of the period - Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, and David Bowie
– but he has none of the slyness of Davies or the toughness of Townshend, and
he is the very antithesis of Bowie’s self-conscious artiness. Rather, his songs
combine vulnerability and directness in a way that is as completely real and
human as conversation between friends. It’s truthfulness, and he manages to
express very strong emotions like love and nostalgia and regret without ever
once becoming sentimental or sloppy. That’s a hard trick to turn. He also has a
wonderful sense of humour and childlike wonder. I remember the first time I
really listened to “Stone” from the first album; I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a
traditional folk song for kids. I still think it’s his masterpiece in many
ways, but then “Tell Everyone” has got to be among the most beautiful love
songs I know. Who else has written a song about being glad to wake up with your
partner because you love them – without descending into slop? Ronnie Lane makes
it real because, presumably, it was. And then there’s that line in “Debris”:
“Oh, you was my
hero, now you are my good friend”
– Where does THAT
come from? All I know is it puts a lump in my throat every time.
Poor old Ronnie
Lane, dying of multiple sclerosis like that. He wasn’t strong enough. Certainly
it’s true that the Faces were never the same after he left – although Tetsu
Yamauchi, faced with the impossible task of replacing him, did as good a job as
anybody could have reasonably expected.
Rod Stewart was strong enough to go on to become a huge international
megastar (and bore most of his old fans into stupefaction). Ron Wood was strong
enough to join the Rolling Stones but allowed his individuality as a musician
to be completely sublimated in the process. So he got rich. Big deal. He never
made music with the Stones like he did with the Faces. The Stones just gobbled
him up, the way they do, and there he remains to this day. Kenny Jones wasn’t
strong enough to replace Keith Moon in the Who but that didn’t stop him from
trying. More’s the pity. The less said about that the better. I don’t know what
happened to Ian McLagan but it’s a safe bet that he hasn’t done anything to top
his work with the Faces.
See, the Faces
weren’t like the Stones, or the Who. Like them, they were a London band – the
quintessential London band of their time – but they weren’t about ruthlessness,
brutishness, power, psychotic rage. They were about fun, and camaraderie, and
the joys of being a bit young and foolish, a bit reckless. They were about
friendship and the healing power of good rock’n’roll. They were about dressing
up and staying out late, falling in love and bringing your bird to meet your
mates, hoping they’ll get on (but not TOO well). They were about drinking a bit
too much and playing a few good old ones, writing a few new good old ones.
Telling terrible jokes, putting up with each other’s moodies, shouting a bit,
arguing, making up, laughing, being as real as it’s possible to be if you’re a
young street-smart working-class London male who plays music for a living in
the early 1970s.
And that’s why the
Faces mattered, and why nothing like them could ever happen again. They were
completely a product of their time, and looking back now - in this suspicious
modern landscape of endless second-guessing - the best of their music reaches
out and wraps the listener in a warm blanket of good-natured humanity. Like a
good friend’s arm round your shoulders when you’re feeling a bit down. And it
doesn’t matter that Rod Stewart turned out to be such a disappointment, that
Ron Wood became such a cartoon. It matters that Ronnie Lane died, because he
was the most talented one, and he was never recognised as such. But that’s the
harshness of life and death: he was just too unassuming – as his best work
attests – to ever push himself forward; and then nature marked his card so
cruelly. No, what matters is that the Faces did exist once; the conditions for
their existence were possible once, and the best of the music they made
together will stand, for as long as people listen, as actual proof that it once
was possible for rock’n’roll to express something other than careerism and
calculation, it was possible for it to express humanity and community,
truthfulness and friendship - things that make it worthwhile being alive. And that’ll have to do.
ADAM BLAKE.
London
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