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…