[2][3] The lyrics of "Every Picture Tells a Story" form a first person narrative of the singer finding adventures with women all over the world but eventually returning home after having learned some moral lessons.

In his review of the album in Rolling Stone, John Mendelsohn noted that this song "does rock with ferocity via a simple but effective seven-note ascension/five-note descension riff that Waller cleverly punctuates with a halved-time bass-drum-against-snare lick.

[5] Stewart biographers Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred describe the music as "a mess — unbalanced and shoddily thrown together," although the "vocals pull the song out of trouble.

"[5] Allmusic critic Denise Sullivan commented that some of the lyrics are racist and sexist (e.g., describing an Asian woman as a "slit-eyed lady"), and that the song "is a real nugget from a brief period in time when rock singers didn't worry about what it meant to be rude -- in fact, the ruder and cruder, the better.

"[8] The lyrics begin with a reference to the theme of self-discovery:[7] "Every Picture Tells a Story" was used in the Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous in a scene where main characters William and Penny walk through the halls of a hotel.

[1][11] It was also included in the opening scene of the third episode of Mayor of Kingstown and was also featured on the soundtrack of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned.