Songfacts®:

• Rod Stewart revived this Sam Cooke Classic in 1972 for his album Never A Dull Moment. The twist craze had long passed (Cooke's original is from 1962), but by this time it had some retro appeal, as all those teenagers who grew up doing the dance were entering adulthood.
• Stewart is a big fan of Sam Cooke and soul music in general. In 1966 he covered Cooke's "Shake," and in 1975 he had a hit with The Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart Of Mine."
• It's not often you see a cover song chart twice, but Stewart's "Twistin' The Night Away," which went to #59 in the US when it was released in 1972, returned to #80 in 1987 after it was used in the Martin Short movie Innerspace.
• Stewart has this to say in his Storyteller anthology: "A Sam Cooke song. I could never sing it better, so we just took it in a different direction. The last track recorded for Never A Dull Moment, it speeds up and down, but the feel is right and that's all that counts."