As is his custom, for the first Song Lyric Sunday of the month Jim is inviting us to play a song that was written or performed by an artist born in that month, i.e. September. His post Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 tells all. And as is my custom I consulted a very helpful website that I have found for this monthly delight, and found more than enough candidates. Having decided not to go with Russ Conway, and suspecting that Freddie Mercury would be a popular choice, I also ruled out Al Stewart and Roger Waters, and decided that the obvious course for me was to go for my own birthday – the 16th, if you want to know when to send the cards! It didn’t look too promising at first – no way was I going for Nick Jonas, and Katie Melua would have been an unlikely choice for me – but I found what I was looking for. Someone who has been part of several bands I’ve loved down the years: Kenney Jones was born on 16 September 1948, which makes him five years older than me.

Who? An appropriate question. Kenney was the drummer for The Small Faces, a founding member of the band, and stayed with them during their transition to being just The Faces, as they added two new members (Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood) who were too tall for the original name. He then went on to play for The Who, and was with them for ten years during which they only made two albums. He left after many debates with Roger Daltrey about his suitability for the band: in Daltrey’s eyes he was a great drummer but wasn’t enough of a lunatic to be the replacement for Keith Moon, though they clearly took a long time coming to that conclusion. He then went on to form bands of his own which don’t appear to have been as successful as his earlier roles.

I thought I’d play you a song from each of those first three bands for today, in chronological order. This is an obvious choice for me from The Small Faces:

All Or Nothing, a true rock classic, and its lyrics are, as always, to be found at genius.com.

The song was written by band members Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, neither of whom is still with us, sadly. It was released as a non-album single in August 1966 (the week after we won the World Cup) and was their first and only UK #1 single, spending a week there in September – the week of Kenney’s and my birthday – knocking the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine off the top. According to Kay Marriott, Steve’s mother, Steve wrote this song about his split with his ex-fiancée Sue Oliver, though his first wife Jenny Rylance has said that he told her he wrote the song for her as a result of her split with Rod Stewart. Both statements are apparently correct (?), according to a later biography of Steve. Following Steve’s death in a house fire in 1991 the song was played as the requiem at his funeral – that seems somehow apt to me, given its lyrics and his lifestyle.

The mention of Rod Stewart is also fitting: as I said, he was one of the two new members brought in to replace Steve Marriott when he left to form Humble Pie. And as the other was Ronnie Wood, that new version of the band has some pedigree! For The Faces, this is my choice:

Apologies for the audio-only clip, but I couldn’t find another that wasn’t restricted or played by a later version of the band. And before I forget, here are the lyrics, from genius.com.

Ooh La La was the title track of The Faces’ fourth and final album, released in March 1973, which went to #1 in the UK and managed #21 in the US. The song was written by the two Ronnies – Wood and Lane (not Barker and Corbett, for the benefit of British readers). It is a jaunty little number with a serious message: the singer didn’t listen to his grandfather when he was sharing words of wisdom, leading to the iconic chorus of “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.” Bob Seger went down a not dissimilar path in Against The Wind, with the line “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” Life can give you belated wisdom! This was released as a single in May 1973, but only in the US, where it didn’t make the charts. However, due to the way streaming has affected the charts in more recent years, despite having not been a single here in the UK the song went Gold in 2023 for more than 400,000 downloads.

Rod Stewart covered Ooh La La for his 18th studio album, When We Were the New Boys, in tribute to the recently deceased Ronnie Lane. It was released in May 1998 as the lead single from the album and reached #16 in the UK. I still prefer the original, though, as I like Ronnie Woods’ vocal better.

After the demise of The Faces Kenney was invited by Pete Townshend to join The Who in 1978. This is a favourite of mine from one of the two albums he made with them:

You Better You Bet, and here is genius.com with the lyrics.

The song was written by Pete Townshend and was released as a single in February 1981, a couple of weeks before it became the opening track on their ninth album, Face Dances. The single peaked at #9 in the UK and #18 in the US, while the album got to #2 in the UK and #4 in the US. As well as being the first single from the album its music video was the fourth aired on MTV in 1981, and was the first to be repeated on the channel – several times, in fact. Pete Townshend wrote the song for his girlfriend at the time, who he described as “one of the loveliest people on the planet.” Fellow band members liked the song too: Roger Daltrey said that the way it bounced along reminded him of Elvis, and Kenney described it as his signature song from his period with the band, commenting “That’s most like me.” I’ve always liked it too!

That’s my lot for today, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my latest trip down Memory Lane. My thanks as always to Jim for running the show, and I’m now off to see who others have chosen to play from the selection of September babies. Have a lovely day, and I’ll see you again for some more Tuesday Tunes 🎶