Status Quo – Pictures of Matchstick Men

I always had a soft spot for this song. It is a swirl of guitar phasing and a droning riff that seems tailor-made for the late 1960s.

Their manager, John Schroeder, who’d worked with Motown acts in the UK, booked studio time at Pye Records’ Marble Arch facility. The Pye studios were initially designed as a service for Pye Records, but also encouraged recording by outside artists. Schroeder not only produced the track but was also the one who encouraged Francis Rossi to push forward with this strange little song he’d written at home.

One of the fascinating things about Pictures of Matchstick Men is that it represents a “what if” moment in Status Quo’s history. Had they continued down this psychedelic path, you wonder how long it would have lasted. Instead, after a few more singles, they turned into a rocking boogie band. 

Listening today, the song feels like an anomaly. It’s not representative of the band’s long career, but it’s a classic slice of psychedelic pop that holds its own. It was the first taste of chart success, the beginning of a 50-year run, and yet it’s also the sound of a band that almost became something completely different.

This song’s riff will stick with you. Once the riff is up, it washes over you with a psychedelic feel. The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard 100, #8 in Canada, and #7 on the UK Charts in 1968. This was their only hit in America. One quirky detail: the inspiration for the lyric came from wallpaper. Rossi was sitting in the bathroom, staring at the bathroom wall, and saw patterns that reminded him of the artist L.S. Lowry’s “Matchstick Men” paintings.

 

Pictures Of Matchstick Men

When I look up to the skies
I see your eyes a funny kind of yellow
I rush home to bed I soak my head
I see your face underneath my pillow
I wake next morning tired still yawning
See your face come peeking through my window
Pictures of matchstick men and you
Mirages of matchstick men and you
All I ever see is them and you

[guitar intro]

Windows echo your reflection
When I look in their direction gone
When will this haunting stop
Your face it just wont leave me a-lone
Pictures of matchstick men and you
Mirages of matchstick men and you
All I ever see is them and you
You in the sky you with this guy you make men cry you lie
You in the sky you with this guy you make men cry you lie

Pictures of matchstick men, Pictures of matchstick…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

50 thoughts on “Status Quo – Pictures of Matchstick Men”

    1. It’s crazy right? Your description is spot on. I’ve listened to some of their UK later hits and they would have fit here but they didn’t get management in the US and they admitted it was the reason they didn’t crack this market. He also said Slade did the same thing.

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  2. Your comment about the difference between this hit song and the rest of what the band did brings to mind a band entitled the Moody Blues. Is the group Denny Laine was in and did “Go Now” really the same as the group that did Nights In White Satin?

    And there’s a voice in the back of my head asking who cares? Let’s get back to the Junior High School dances I went to Friday nights and dancing with those girls that I barely remember. 🙂

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    1. Oh I agree…HUGE change in that band. Fleetwood Mac would fit in that as well.
      I agree…get me back to high school! I’m ready!

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    1. I heard it in the 80s at some point on an oldies channel…that riff sounds like it would be fun to play…I’ve never tried. Thanks man!

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  4. Pingback: Status Quo – Pictures of Matchstick Men – MobsterTiger

    1. Yes they did…Rossi said he was told in 1971 they need American management…he said that he didn’t do it and regretted it. He said they would tour and no one would know about it and they didn’t get publized…he said Slade did the same thing. Whether that was it I don’t know.
      I hope you are doing well Randy!

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  9. it’s a great and even if it’s uncharacteristic of the band’s sound, it certainly was the most palatable thing they did to North American ears. They had a mighty fine career over in the UK though

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    1. Yea but Dave…just like The Hip…they had songs that could have hit over here. They never got American management and that hurt.

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  11. Certainly remember this one from oldies radio. Don’t know of anything else they did, but remember them opening the Wembley portion of LiveAid with John Fogerty’s “Rockin’ All Over The World”.

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  12. A band that is known two different ways in the States and ‘back ‘ome.’ Kind of like how the way America (mostly) knew nothing of the Bee Gees before their high-struttin’ high falsettoed windblown White Suit days.

    I liked their early ‘Ice’ and ‘Matchstick’ sound, and yes,they sounded like Any Average Bar Band later on. Their ‘All Over The World’ never rocked me, but then I consider this one of Fogarty’s lesser numbers anyway.

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    1. Yes…and Fleetwood Mac would fit also but I never thought of the Bee Gees but you are right.
      You spoke of Fogerty…there is one song he did that I really like…it’s called Almost Saturday Night…a lot of covers as well. That is the one I like the best out of his solo stuff…the Satellites covered it.

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      1. I like a few Fogarty solo numbers, but they are a bit spottier than the CCR days when pretty much everything was a hit. ‘110 In The Shade’ ‘Joy Of My Life’ ‘Long Dark Night’ ‘It Ain’t Right’ work for me.

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      2. I never heard Joy Of My Life…I’ll check that out. I liked his Centerfield album with Big Train from Memphis and I Saw It On Tv…that one is a great history lesson.

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  13. I knew about Status Quo back in the I think 70s when I bought an album called On the Level…I knew nothing about them, and oddly enough I still have that Vinyl….I wasn’t really aware of matchstick until years later, am still not sure how I feel about it…….I’ll never forget Bob Geldof’s reaction at Live Aid when the Quo opened with Rockin’ All Over The World….

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    1. Yes…I think most of us remember that more than anything. It’s odd that they are one of the UK’s biggest bands ever.

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      1. the Brits love there boogie woogie..there’s so many bads that mined that same thing, I remember a band called Spider..but I think it’s always that sense of humor maybe….

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      2. Yea and the seventies were the perfect time for that type of music. Wow Warren…I just played “New Romance (It’s a Mystery)” by Spider…damn…I knew it! I’ve heard this before.

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      3. actually different band, there’s a British and an American Spider…the New Romance is an amazing band or was…one member is Holly Knight, who’s known more as a great songwriter…Love is a Battlefield, Tina Turner’s the Best among many everyone knows…that sing was also a big hit for Canadian band Toronto….the British one is a foursome they were around at the time of the new wave of heavy metal era when bands like Raven (Crash Bang Wollop) ruled Kerrang..

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      4. I’m listening to them now…Back to the Wall…Liverpool band…just regular rock and roll…not bad.

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      5. I’m just digging through a double live album I got decades ago called Reading Rock, live cuts of bands that played that festival in the late 70s and in the 80s…its like a collection of bands I still like, Budge, Marillion, Stampede, Whitesnake, UFO, along with Michael Schenker, Bernie Marsden and Randy California…at that time my goal that never happened was to get to that Marquee Club in Soho….there were so many bands, and the Brits always seemed to have a different feel or sound to them….

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      6. I liked UFO a lot…I’ve been meaning to post something by them. I’ve read about that club…that is where The Who started.

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  14. We played with them at the Studio Club in Dallas, 1968. Nice guys, but didn’t know a lot of tunes. Cool song though. A lot of Brits passed through Dallas and Fort Worth back then. The Yardbirds set in one night at the Studio Club while Kenny and the Kasuals were playing. Sort of blew the roof off of the place. Only in Texas, dudes.

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      1. A lot of the British bands came through Dallas before they hit it big and played clubs like The Studio and Louanns, Phantasmagoria and The Box. We did a mini-tour with Iron Butterfly when they released their first album, Heavy, and they were traveling in a Ford Van paced with their equipment. Such was the life of the rock bands back then. Nothing like today.

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      2. In our little circle the bands knew each other and for the most part we got along…it was a cool small scene that not many knew about…you played in a huge scene. We wanted to open for big bands and I only got one chance and we opened for the immortal “Royal Guardsmen” but it was fun.
        I would imagine travel sucked for a band then.

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      3. We were lucky, our manager bought a used Caddie Hearse and we pulled a trailer with our grear behind it. Loaded the back part with pillows from Pier One, added a Lear 8 track tape player and we were road ready. We would do a gig in Dallas, pack up and drive to Houston for a gig, then swing back through Austin or Fort Worth, then home. It was a lot of travel for high school guys. I didn’t have a weekend off for years.

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      4. That is really cool… I know it wasn’t pleasant when it was happening but I bet you would not trade that time away.

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  15. Love early Quo – especially Matchstick Men – and I swear Spinal Tap based their 60’s origins on Quo 🙂 Quo’s talent was to be unfashionable, stay unfashionable, and just keep on dropping great singalong rock tracks, stick to the formula with occasional surprise departures like the fab In The Army Now to confound expectations. It’s a shame later stuff like Down Down, Rockin All Over The World and Whatever You Want aren’t known, 70’s anthems. Sadly I didnt get a ticket to Francis Rossi’s meet n greet last night in Wimborne, Dorset just down the road, but I did catch Quo back in their heyday – a great night out guaranteed.

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    1. They should have made it over here…there songs are very catchy. The only song we did know was Rockin All Over The World from other performers and of course the author John Fogerty.

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    1. This is the one song we knew as well… but after listening…I do like their 70s stuff…and I think America would have as well if they would have heard it.

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