Songfacts®:

• Let's face it, the lyrics to "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" sound profoundly creepy to modern ears. The song is about an older man wooing a schoolgirl. There's some wiggle room in that singer Rod Stewart never refers to himself as an adult but only specifies that he "once was a schoolboy too." So, we can listen to the song as the words of a young dropout, but we'd be fooling ourselves.
  
  The song is simply a product of another time. It's a remake of Sonny Boy Williamson's 1937 song "Good Morning, School Girl," a blues staple covered by many top artists. Even in 1964 when Stewart recorded his version, cultural norms were different. Stewart's rendition has a fun, playful, innocent sound. He was only 19 at the time, not that far from school age himself.
  
  Somewhat ironically, it was Stewart who was bedded by an adult when he was 16. He tells the story in his signature song, "Maggie May."
• "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" was the first song Stewart recorded solo.
  
  His first-ever recording came three months earlier when he did an uncredited duet with Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men in "Up Above My Head." Baldry had brought Stewart into his band after hearing the younger man perform Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning." Baldry talked Stewart up to Melody Maker, one of the premier pop-culture magazines of its time, and was instrumental in getting Stewart his big break.
  
  Still playing with the Hoochie Coochie Men, Stewart recorded "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" in September 1964. At the time he was still called "Rod the Mod" in reference to his image as a mod - the sunglass-wearing, scooter-driving protopunks of 1960s London.
  
  "Good Morning Little School Girl" failed to chart despite Stewart getting significant exposure through the Hoochie Coochie Men and the music-television program Ready Steady Go! He broke with Baldry on bad terms one month later, but the two eventually repaired their relationship.
• In the liner to notes to his 1989 compilation Storyteller, Stewart explained what happened when he recorded this song:
  
  "Twas a typically cold, wet London morning in the year 1964, when a thin, slightly nervous lad of 19 made his way enthusiastically via public transport to his first recording session. On arrival at the reception in the studio, he announced himself proudly forthwith. A secretary with a face like a bag of chisels looked up in dismay and replied, 'Rod who?'
  
  Crestfallen but unbowed, the lad once again offered his name.
  
  'Ah yes,' said the secretary, looking up from her diary. 'I'm sorry to inform you, er, Mr. Stewart, but I'm afraid you're exactly one week early for your recording appointment.'
  
  On returning the following week, the session, as I recall, went well and swiftly, all but for the laughter that erupted from my fellow musicians when I unraveled a rather pathetic looking cheese sandwich for my lunch break. Anyway, that's the outcome. I believe John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame was on bass.
  
  Unbeknownst to myself, The Yardbirds had recorded the very same song some weeks earlier and were about to release it, therefore rendering my version fairly useless. The first rung on the ladder had collapsed."