Within six years, and this is what I find incredible, from the release of "Move It," England conquered the world with the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Zombies, bang. It all came from different sources, but in my simplification of it, I think everybody who became a star between 1958 and 1964 probably heard that riff from "Move It" and probably learned it and probably played it. So what I'm doing in "Class of '58" is examining the impact of that riff (which actually opens the long version) and the life of one person who was inspired by that particular riff.

Now, there are references in the song that I love — because they're really inside references that no one will get. I think you'll like this one, Natalie: The guy in the song signs to Oriole. Oriole? Baltimore Orioles?

ND: That hit me when I heard the long version. Nice of you to recall.

AS: It occurred to me when we were setting up the interview. I thought of you and of this song and I thought you would find the reference amusing. Anyway, in England, there were two big record companies, EMI and Decca, and EMI won the Battle of the Bands because they signed the Beatles while Decca got the Rolling Stones. EMI got most of the others — [among them] Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. [For the record, Stewart's first label was Decca; he was signed in 1966.] Then there was, like, a secondary level, which were Pie and Philips. Pie signed the Kinks and Philips signed Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders ["Groovy Kind of Love," "It Was Easier to Hurt Her"].

ND: Oh, my god...Fontana fan...I must be old...

AS: (laughs) Right at the very, very bottom of the record-label heap was Oriole Records, which I love, because they had no money and no publicity department and they never made hits. They signed all the people who were left. I cannot put it more simply than to say that Oriole Records signed Rory Storm and the Hurricanes after Ringo left. (Resounding laughter.)

ND: (through tears) Oh. Well.

AS: That was the uniqueness of Oriole. I loved them, because I always love underdogs. My local band in Bournemouth [an English resort town where Stewart spent his teen years], a duo considered to be the English Everly Brothers signed to Oriole and I had all their records. I went out of my way to buy Oriole singles because, though they were never hits, they were interesting. It was a label that just couldn't win. They only had one Top 10 single, which was "Orange Blossom Special" by the Spotnicks, but I'm digressing.

It's just one line in the song [the extended 13-minute version, not the CD edit]: "The song came out on Oriole / And it did not make the charts..." Now, to a lot of people, that's a meaningless line, but to me, that's almost the soul of the whole song: If your song comes out on Oriole, it's probably not going to be a hit. The long version is filled with these references, which a lot of American people probably wouldn't get — a lot of English people wouldn't get them. But for me, the song is dense with references of the time period and I loved it. I gave it to EMI [Stewart's present English label] and they hated it. They said, "This is not what we like. We want you to write 'Roads to Moscow' and 'Trains.' What is all this rock and roll shit? And I said, "Well, I love early rock and roll; it's what I grew up on. It's a historical song." And they said, "It's not a historical song; it's dreadful. Go away and don't do it again."