The 1971 song Rod Stewart left a massive mistake in: “One big cock-up”
In the modern age of music recording, more and more studios are beginning to shut down.
There is a simple explanation for this: it’s merely because it’s becoming easier and easier for artists to record songs themselves from the confines of their homes using a couple of pieces of equipment and their laptops. That makes economic sense, but some touches to music can only occur in a studio environment, as Rod Stewart can attest to.
When you’re recording something live within a studio, you capture a raw energy that is tough to capture anywhere else. By leaving in little moments of improvisation, sudden changes in tempo, and generally capturing music as it happens, you are giving the audience something that can be truly transportive. Sometimes, even mistakes being left in songs can give them a unique feel, and that’s exactly what you get with Rod Stewart’s 1971 track ‘Reason To Believe’.
The track was initially written in 1965 by Tim Hardin, who recorded it in 1965 and performed it at Woodstock. As a fan of the song, Stewart was keen on recording his own version, which he released as a single with ‘Maggie May’ as the B-side. It turned out that DJs and the general public preferred the B-side more, so ‘Maggie May’ became the hit.
While there is no set formula for whether a song will do well or not, one of the problems with the track that meant people struggled to get on board was how busy it was instrumentally. The organ, guitar, drums, bass, and piano all do completely different things throughout, and while it doesn’t sound bad, it could have been tough for casual listeners to latch onto the track.
The looseness of the recording speaks to a broader moment in rock music at the start of the 1970s, when polish was beginning to take a back seat to feel. Stewart and his band were not chasing perfection in the traditional sense; they were chasing something that felt alive. That meant allowing the musicians room to breathe, even if it occasionally led to things slipping slightly off course. There is a sense, listening back, that the track could tip over at any moment, and that tension gives it a subtle edge that more controlled recordings often lack.
It also highlights the trust between the players in the room. Rather than halting and starting again, they carried on, instinctively finding their way back into the song as a unit. Those kinds of decisions cannot be replicated through isolated home recording setups, where parts are often built piece by piece. In a shared space, reactions are immediate and often unconscious, and that interplay becomes part of the fabric of the recording itself, shaping the final result in ways that are impossible to plan in advance.
It seems that even the band struggled to keep up at one point, as when the song fades to silence around the halfway point, Stewart confirms that this was never supposed to happen. “A very lucid upright bass played by Spike Healey and a beautiful guitar played by Martin Quittenton create an almost ethereal quality,” he said.
Stewart continued, discussing the clear mistake in the track, “Nevertheless, there is one big cock-up in the middle where everybody stops playing for no apparent reason. We overdubbed a couple of things – one ironing board and two deck chairs – and all was well.”
While it may be a mistake, the moment of silence adds a great deal to the song. Stewart’s voice is as raspy as ever, and when you’ve been listening to such a heavy dose of instrumentation, having a moment where it’s just his vocals and nothing else is incredibly sweet and intimate. It’s a great example of why recording in studios can be effective because even though the silence wasn’t supposed to happen, it added another section to the song, which, for many people, is one of the most memorable moments.
