Songfacts®:

• This tender ballad was the song that kickstarted Rod Stewart's Time album, his first record containing his own original songs in 15 years. Rod recalled to The Guardian that he only started writing again after a visit from his friend Jim Cregan to his mansion in Essex, England. "He comes round for Sunday dinner when I'm in the country and always brings his guitar," the star recalled. "I watch him come up the drive and ... 'Oh, f--king hell, he's brought his guitar again.' He's always pushing me to write a song. So he says: 'Come on, siddown, let's have a go.' I said: 'No, I wanna have a little lie down. Just had Sunday dinner.' So he said: 'Come on, have a little go.' So I started singing, and he took it home, worked on the track a little bit, added a couple more guitars, and that was Brighton Beach."
  
  Former Family and Cockney Rebel guitarist Jim Cregan joined Rod Stewart's band in 1977 and became his musical director, co-producer and co-writer. Cregan co-penned many hits with Stewart, including "Passion", "Tonight I'm Yours (Don't Hurt Me)", and " Forever Young."
• The semi-autobiographical ballad finds Stewart, reflecting on his weekend beatnik days as a teenager, hanging out under Brighton pier with his girlfriend, London art student Suzannah Boffey. Stewart told The Daily Telegraph their affair was "the first time I ever fell in love." Suzannah became pregnant, but neither Rod nor his family wanted him to enter marriage. The baby girl was given for adoption immediately after her birth but has subsequently become a part of Stewart's extended family.
• According to Rod, Susannah can't stand him but he and their girl Sarah have now started calling each other father and daughter. "Quite rightly, she has a chip on her shoulder," he told Mojo magazine, "'f---, just my luck, seven other kids and I'm the one born out of wedlock, so I had no money.' But we e-mail each other and I take her out to dinner. We're getting there."