A Wistful Wink at Life’s Lessons: The Faces’ “Ooh La La”
In the twilight of their raucous reign, The Faces uncorked “Ooh La La”, a bittersweet gem that closed their 1973 album of the same name, Ooh La La, which climbed to #21 on the Billboard Top 200 and hit #1 on the UK Albums Chart. Released on March 5 by Warner Bros., this track didn’t chart as a single in its day, but its wistful charm later found immortality through radio play and covers—like The Black Crowes’ 1993 rendition. For those of us who stumbled through the ‘70s, when rock was a boozy, shambolic affair, this song is a dog-eared postcard from a wilder time—a grandfather’s rueful laugh, a barstool sermon, a melody that cradles the heart like an old friend. It’s the sound of cigarette smoke curling in the air, of lessons learned too late, and the tender ache of looking back.
The birth of “Ooh La La” is a tale soaked in the band’s chaotic brilliance. By 1973, The Faces—Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane, Ronnie Wood, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones—were fraying at the edges, their bar-band brotherhood buckling under Stewart’s solo stardom and endless debauchery. Recorded at Olympic Studios in London, the song was a collaboration between Lane and Wood, with Lane’s folk-soul heart dreaming it up as a cautionary tale inspired by his East End roots. He’d envisioned Stewart’s gravelly swagger on vocals, but Rod, distracted by Never a Dull Moment’s success, balked at the high register. So Lane stepped up, his reedy, fragile voice—recorded after a night of revelry—lending it an unexpected vulnerability. Producer Glyn Johns captured the ramshackle magic: Wood’s lilting guitar, McLagan’s sprightly piano, and a hungover warmth that feels like a pub singalong gone quiet. It was their swan song; Lane quit soon after, and the band crumbled by year’s end.
At its core, “Ooh La La” is a tender lament dressed in a grin—a grandfather’s warning to a boy about love’s siren call. “Poor old Granddad, I laughed at all his words / I thought he was a bitter man,” Lane sings, his voice cracking with regret, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.” It’s about the folly of youth, the women “whose dark eyes turn you inside out,” and the wisdom that only time delivers—too late to dodge the bruises. For older listeners, it’s a mirror to those ‘70s nights—spilling out of gigs, chasing shadows in platform shoes, thinking you’d outrun consequence. It’s the echo of a mate’s slurred advice, the clink of pint glasses, the moment you realize the old man was right. As Lane’s final “Ooh la la” fades, you’re left with a lump in your throat—a nostalgia for when innocence was a gamble, and every scar a story worth singing.