da ya think I'm sexy

And B-Sides… Rod Stewart

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

For our latest B-sides feature, I thought I’d look back at the man who belted his way through a greatest hits set during the Glastonbury ‘Legends’ slot last weekend. He may be eighty, but Rod the Mod still has a bit of life left in him yet.

Rod scored six UK #1s between 1971 and 1983, and here are the B-sides to three of those chart-toppers…

‘Lost Paraguayos’ – B-side to ‘You Wear It Well’

A lively rocker, very much in the folksy story-teller vein of his earliest hits. And much like ‘Maggie May’, it’s another tale of Rod upping and leaving a lady. But unlike the older Maggie, the unamed filly in this one may be dubiously young… Your ridiculous age, Start a state outrage, And I’ll end up in a Mexican jail… (Ah, the nineteen seventies…) It ends in a flurry of guitar licks and a brass band, and is a whole lot of fun.

‘Stone Cold Sober’ – B-side to ‘Sailing’

Another rocker, this time with a countryish bent. The bar room piano, the glam rock licks… Why wasn’t this version of Rod a greater presence at the top of the charts, over the more earnest (and sometimes slightly dull) balladeer? Plus, we have lyrics which argue that waking up hungover in an alley is worth it as long as you had a wild night (a compelling debate topic, for sure). But on Thursday prepare for your weekend, And let Friday disappear into Saturday morning, When you’re stone cold sober again… Nobody plays the loveable rogue better than Rod Stewart. Speaking of which…

‘Dirty Weekend’ – B-side to ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’

Those who feel that he slipped too much into parody with ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’ had better avoid the B-side, in which he’s off over the border again… This bawdy barroom brawl of a tune peaks in the second verse, which deserves to be quoted in full:

I’ll bring the red wine, You bring the ‘ludes, Your mother’s doctor must be quite a dude… We’ll hang a ‘don’t disturb’ outside our door, I’m gonna rock you ’till your pussy’s sore…

I mean… It’s preposterous. But I love it. In the eighties he tried to, probably sensibly, move away from this uber-lothario image, yet I respect the fact that he spent the entire second half of the seventies making a career out of being a borderline sex pest, culminating in this ode to banging your best friend’s girl under a fake name in Mexico. And he brings ‘Dirty Weekend’ to an abrupt end inside two and a half minutes, as if fully aware that this nonsense can go on no longer.

If anything, it’s also been nice featuring some guitar-heavy, balls to the proverbial wall, rock ‘n’ roll tunes back on this blog. I’ll have to do it again sometime soon. Next time we’ll be back to the regular rundown, in 2001, where guitars have become endangered beasts, and rock music but a distant memory…

Cover Versions of #1s – G4 and Paris Hilton

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

No, don’t run. Come back! I know that title is enough to scare off any right-minded person, but bear with me. Yes, good cover versions are all fine and dandy. But there’s also pleasure to be had from a bad cover version…

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, by G4 (originally a #1 in 1975, for Queen)

If ever a song was ‘uncoverable’, then that song is probably ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Credit then to pop-opera (Popera?) group G4, for giving it a go, and for proving just how impossible a job it is. It’s not that it’s a shockingly bad record; it simply adds nothing to the original. The vocals reach nothing like the heights (quite literally) of Freddie Mercury, and the music is karaoke backing track at best. They should have gone somewhere different with it – full-on opera treatment, a capella, something… G4 were runners-up in the very first season of the X-Factor in 2004, finishing behind Steve Brookstein, who we will sadly have to deal with in our regular countdown… This was their only UK hit. I remembered it existing, but I had completely forgot that this version actually made #9 in the charts!

‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’, by Paris Hilton (originally a #1 in 1978, for Rod Stewart)

The thought of Paris Hilton covering ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ is almost too obvious to be true. No comedy writer would dare be so unimaginative. But here we are. The final track on her thus far only album ‘Paris’ sees Hilton breathing her way through this pretty faithful cover of Rod Stewart’s polarising 5th #1 single. Since this album came out in 2006, she has drip fed us a string of singles, including 2019’s brilliantly titled ‘B.F.A. (Best Friend’s Ass)’. Of course she has never topped her first single, the… *whisper it very softly* … actually quite brilliant, reggae-tinged, ‘Stars Are Blind’.

The final two covers tomorrow!

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429. ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’, by Rod Stewart

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

And so we come to one of the most misunderstood chart-toppers. This record has been parodied, mocked, hated…

Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, by Rod Stewart (his 5th of six #1s)

1 week, from 26th November – 3rd December 1978

But more on that in a bit. For a moment, let’s just enjoy the disco drums, and that well-known synth riff. Let’s enjoy the bass line. Let’s enjoy the fact that Rod Stewart’s 5th number one single is not an acoustic ballad. She sits alone, Waiting for suggestions… He’s so nervous, Avoidin’ all the questions… It’s a song about two shy people hooking up in a bar. At least, wanting to hook up in a bar. What should they say to break the ice? Luckily, Rod has a not-so-subtle suggestion…

If you want my body, And you really need me, Come on sugar let me know… It works. She calls her mother, and they’re back off to his place for a night of passion. Problem is… nobody seems to realise that that’s what this song is about. People know the chorus, and think that Rod Stewart’s singing about himself. They think he’s full of it, he’s disappeared up himself, he’s ridiculous… And it would be ridiculous, to write a song like this, about yourself. But that’s not what’s happening.

I say this as someone who knew the chorus and little else before writing this post. I assumed that Rod had let himself be swept up in the hedonism of disco. I pictured him singing this to himself in a nightclub of mirrors, coked off his tits. But no. He’s telling a story, as he does in so many of his songs. The line about them waking up the next morning and being out of milk and coffee is an observation straight out of ‘Maggie May’. And the middle eight is glorious: Relax baby, Now we’re all alone…

Of course, it’s not hard to see why this is seen as something of a novelty. The title, for a start. Plus, Rod made the dubious decision to play the song’s male protagonist in the video, frolicking on a bed with a gorgeous blonde. (Well, why not?) Then there’s the album from which it’s the lead track: ‘Blondes Have More Fun’, and its cover featuring Rod in a clinch with a leopard-print wearing woman. And then there’s the B-side, ‘Dirty Weekend’ – a song I love but not one that could ever be described as ‘classy’…

There is one other reason why some don’t like this disc. It is, pretty unashamedly, disco. Rock stars shouldn’t do disco! Disco, as many would start to claim around the time this hit #1, sucks! (These people were idiots; but their opinions stuck. Disco is heading for one final, glorious swansong, before crashing and burning.) At least this song not boring, or earnest, or acoustic… It’s not perfect. The sax solo is extravagantly long. In fact, the whole song is extravagantly long, as the age of the disco 12” demanded.

In my mind, ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ exists first and foremost as a Eurodance remix, by N-Trance, which was a #7 hit when I was twelve or so (I had it on cassette…) And as a sketch by the late Kenny Everett, a good friend of Rod, in which he prances around as Rod to this song, with a ridiculously oversized arse. It has left a cultural legacy, this record, for better or worse. Which means it’s still a famous chart-topper and, underneath it all, a pretty darn good one!