Maggie May

This song was inspired by the woman who deflowered Stewart when he was 16. In the January 2007 issue of Q magazine, Stewart said: "'Maggie May' was more or less a true story, about the first woman I had sex with, at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival." With his reputation on the line, Stewart was nervous. He said the encounter was over "in a few seconds."

The name "Maggie May" does not appear in the song; Rod borrowed the title from "Maggie Mae," a Liverpool folk song about a Lime Street prostitute that the Beatles included on their Let It Be album. Stewart liked the play on words the title created, sometimes introducing the song by saying, "This is 'Maggie May' - sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't."

In his memoir Rod: The Autobiography, Stewart provided details of the experience that led to this song. Wrote Stewart: "At 16, I went to the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in the New Forest. I'd snuck in with some mates via an overflow sewage pipe. And there on a secluded patch of grass, I lost my not-remotely-prized virginity with an older (and larger) woman who'd come on to me very strongly in the beer tent. How much older, I can't tell you - but old enough to be highly disappointed by the brevity of the experience." Remarkably, there is video of Stewart at the festival, which took place in July 1961.