A Tender Tug Between Joy and Regret: Faces’ “Glad and Sorry”
In the hazy spring of 1973, Faces, Britain’s ramshackle rock ‘n’ roll troubadours, unveiled “Glad and Sorry”, a poignant track tucked into their fourth and final studio album, Ooh La La, which soared to #1 on the UK Albums Chart and hit #21 on the Billboard Top 200 upon its March 5 release by Warner Bros. Though it never charted as a single—unlike the album’s title track—this Ronnie Lane-penned gem, sung with aching soul by Lane himself, became a quiet cornerstone of their legacy. For those of us who stumbled through the early ‘70s, when rock was a boozy embrace and life teetered between highs and lows, this song is a faded bar napkin—a soft confession of mixed emotions, a memory of nights when laughter and tears shared the same breath. It’s the sound of a jukebox winding down in a dim pub, tugging at the heart of anyone who’s ever felt the bittersweet sting of letting go.
The creation of “Glad and Sorry” captures Faces—Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones—at their ragged peak and unraveling edge. By late 1972, they were a band of brothers fraying fast—Stewart’s solo stardom pulling him away, Lane’s soul yearning for simpler roots. Recorded at Olympic Studios in London with producer Glyn Johns, the song spilled from Lane in a rare, sober moment, inspired—he later hinted—by the push-pull of leaving the band he’d co-founded. “It’s about being glad to be free, sorry to lose what you love,” he’d muse. McLagan’s wistful organ weaves through Wood’s gentle guitar, Jones’ brushes tap like a sigh, and Lane’s fragile croon—stepping up as Stewart demurred—lends it a raw intimacy. Released as their chaos crested—Lane quit months later—it was a swan song within a swan song, a folk-tinged whisper amid their usual roar, born from a group too wild to last but too tight to fade.
At its essence, “Glad and Sorry” is a delicate dance of conflicted heart—a man wrestling with freedom’s cost. “Thank you kindly for thinking of me / If I’m not smiling, I’m just thinking,” Lane sings, his voice a tender bruise over a melody that sways, “Glad and sorry, happy or sad / When all is done and spoken, you’re up or I’m down.” It’s a soul relieved yet rueful—“Can you guess what I’m thinking of now?”—balancing joy and sorrow in a fleeting breath. For older listeners, it’s a portal to those ‘70s nights—spilling from gigs into foggy streets, the air thick with ale and ache, the pang of a mate’s goodbye. It’s the clink of a last pint, the glow of a cigarette’s ember, the moment you felt both lighter and lost. As the final “glad and sorry” drifts away, you’re left with a quiet wound—a nostalgia for when every note held a truth, and life’s mess was the sweetest song you knew.
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