A Spanner in the Works is the seventeenth studio album released by Rod Stewart on 29 May 1995.

It ended a four-year gap since his previous studio album, Vagabond Heart.

Five singles were released: "You're The Star", "Leave Virginia Alone", "This", "Lady Luck", and "Purple Heather".

The album includes covers of Bob Dylan's "Sweetheart Like You" and The Blue Nile's "The Downtown Lights".

Track 12, later released as a single featuring the Scottish Euro '96 Football Squad, "Purple Heather" is a folk song that normally goes by the name "Wild Mountain Thyme".