#51 All or Nothing

#51 All or Nothing – The Small Faces

One of the anthems of my life really.

The Small Faces, in case you’ve never heard of them, were the ultimate mod band: Steve Mariott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan  (McLagan replacing Jimmy Winston on keyboards) had a string of hits in the 60’s and were a huge influence on British music during the 70’s.

The band (ex Steve Mariott) joined with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart to form “The Faces” – which in turn launched the bid for international super-stardom of the spikey-haired Scot, about whom Steve Mariott wrote this song after Stewart split with Jackie Rylance. (It was about this time that Jackie Collins is said to have seen Stewart perform and become inspired to write “Lovers & Gamblers” – but that’s another story). Steve Mariott, of course, went on to form Humble Pie (with Peter Frampton). I hope that clears things up.

The Small Faces were also one of the origninal influences of the Britpop movement of the 90’s.

Lyrics

I thought you’d listen to my reason
But now I see, you don’t hear a thing
Try to make you see, how it’s got to be

Yes it’s all, all or nothing
Yeah yeah, All or nothing
All or nothing, for me

Things could work out just like I want them to, yeah
If I could have the other half of you, yeah
You know I would, If I only could

Yes it’s yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
You’ll hear my children say, all or nothing, for me

I didn’t tell you no lies
So don’t you sit there and cry girl
Yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
D’you know what I mean
You got to, got to, go to keep on trying, yeah
All or nothing, mm yeah
All or nothing, to keep on working on to me
All or nothing for me, for me, for me
Come on children, yeah