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Maggie May"Maggie May" was a song written by Rod Stewart and musician Martin Quittenton and recorded by Stewart's band The Faces in 1971. It told the story of a younger man becoming obsessed with an older woman as his lover and was written from Stewart's own personal experiences. The song was initially released in the UK as a B-side to the single "Reason To Believe" but DJs became more fond of the flip-side and, after two weeks in the chart, the song was re-classified with "Maggie May" as the A-side. In October 1971, the song went to No.1 in the UK and simultaneously topped the charts in the USA. The corresponding album, Every Picture Tells A Story, achieved the same feat at the same time - to top the UK and US singles charts simultaneously is a rare achievement which has been achieved by only a handful of acts other than Stewart, notably the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and, most recently, Beyonce Knowles. The song launched Stewart as one of the great rock 'n' roll superstars and launched him fully as a solo artist. While he has sold millions of records and had countless hits around the world, it is still "Maggie May" for which he arguably is best known. A famous live performance of the song on Top Of The Pops saw the Faces joined onstage by DJ John Peel who pretended to play the mandolin. The song re-entered the UK charts in December 1976 but only made No.31. No other act has released the song as a single, though both Blur and Wet Wet Wet have recorded versions of the song.
Long before Rod Stewart, the traditional song "Maggie May" became the informal anthem of the city of Liverpool and it still is. It tells the story of a sailor robbed by a prostitute. It is usually sung by beer drinkers with loud voices, many of whom have never heard of Rod Stewart. It has some similarities with the american song Nellie Gray. The two songs may have developed together in the nineteenth century. 'Maggie' coarse and cheerful and 'Nellie' a sad criticism of slavery which went on to become favourite tune among bluegrass performers. (from unionsong.com/muse/songnet/057.html John Manifold in his Penguin Australian Song Book writes "A foc'sle song of Liverpool origin apparently, but immensely popular among seamen all over the world...". Stan Hugill in his Shanties from the Seven Seas writes of an early reference to the song in the diary of Charles Picknell a sailor on the convict ship 'Kains' which sailed to Van Diemens Land in 1830 ) The traditional song "Maggie May" was recorded in the studio by the Beatles during their chaotic "Get Back" sessions in early 1969, and was included on the resultant 1970 album "Let It Be", controversially appearing immediately after the title song. However it was excluded from the 2003 reworking of the same album "Let It Be ... Naked", apparently because Paul McCartney thought it had been included distastefully and deliberately to mock and sabotage his composition.
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