Every Picture Tells a Story

Stewart recorded his third album at Morgan Studios in London between November 1970 and January 1971 and produced it himself. All five members of Faces appear on it, with Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan used most. Because of contractual restrictions the credits were vague, and it was not clear that the full Faces line-up played on (I Know) I'm Losing You, the one track where the band backs him as a group. Ray Jackson plays mandolin on the record and is credited only as the mandolin player in Lindisfarne. Martin Quittenton plays acoustic guitar, Pete Sears piano, Micky Waller drums, and Sam Mitchell slide guitar. Maggie Bell and Long John Baldry sing on the title song. The sleeve credits slip the names of Martell Cognac and Mateus Rose in among the musicians. Rolling Stone's 2020 list entry quotes Stewart: "We had no preconceived ideas of what we were going to do."

Reason to Believe went out first as the single, with Maggie May on the other side. Maggie May took over, and the album reached number one in Britain for six weeks and in the United States for four, at the same time as the single was topping both singles charts. (I Know) I'm Losing You reached 24 on the Hot 100. Three of the songs are Stewart's own, and the covers include Tim Hardin, Bob Dylan, Arthur Crudup and the Temptations' Motown hit.

John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone in 1971 that "there's enough that is unqualifiedly magnificent on the other half." Christgau gave it an A+, writing that Stewart "can make words flesh." The Village Voice critics' poll put it third for 1971, behind Who's Next and Sticky Fingers. Rolling Stone placed it at 172 in 2003 and 177 in 2020. Tal Rosenberg of Pitchfork, in a 2023 Sunday Review, called it "a rollicking and surprisingly grounded document of early '70s folk-rock." In a 2004 list for the Observer, Tony Parsons put it first and wrote that Stewart made "the best records that Seventies teenagers had ever heard."