Songfacts®:

• The Small Faces broke up in March 1969 with Steve Marriott going on to form Humble Pie. Their manager Andrew Loog Oldham released this power ballad as the unofficial final song by the group. The band never publicized the tune and it only managed to reach #36 in the UK charts.
• Marrott's lyrics are a paean to his model wife, Jenny Rylance, and were played at their wedding service in May 1968. Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley commented to Mojo magazine: "Only Steve could write a beautiful love song about what it feels to have a fag after sex!"
  
  A previous Small Faces single, "Tin Soldier," had been written by Marriott in an attempt to woo Rylance.
• An alternate version titled "Afterglow" originally appeared on the Small Faces' 1968 album, Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake.
• According to Small Faces' labelmate P.P. Arnold, Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane wrote "Afterglow" for her. "But then they liked it and kept it themselves!" she told Uncut magazine.
  
  "I like the way it starts out with a nice hooky thing, and then it goes into a really cool verse," Arnold continued. "You make some really beautiful loving with somebody, you're kind of laying there with them, and you're in this magical kind of glow. So what do you call it? Yeah, afterglow. It's all about that. Steve was a beautiful guy. He was my soul brother. We were lovers and of course we loved singing together."
• Several artists have covered "Afterglow" over the years, including:
  
  Flo & Eddie on their eponymous 1973 album.
  
  Quiet Riot on their 1978 album Quiet Riot II. They released a remixed acoustic version 15 years later on The Randy Rhoads Years.
  
  Great White covered the song on their 1991 album Hooked.