Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Rock legend Rod Stewart is going to play concerts in South Africa, the morning radio DJ announced breathlessly. In our celebrity-starved land, that is big news. Amplifying the public joy is the certain knowledge that it will be the real Rod coming to our shores, not a tribute act pretending to be the real article, as happened when “Earth, Wind & Fire” toured the country. Our boy Rod is a real superstar. At least in South Africa. He always was. That”s why he could draw an audience to Sun City, the cheeky little cultural boycott breaker.

He is also entirely irrelevant these days. Today, Stewart”s output ““ mostly karaoke performances of the standards ““ is squarely aimed at the audience that has followed him faithfully ever since Sailing. The really obsessive reader of this little seed in the blogospheric silo may recall that I have great memories of Sailing ““ it was the soundtrack to my first (and last) slow dance with the first love of my life, the lovely Antje. So I ought to find it in my heart to forgive everybody”s favourite faux-Caledonian a lot of things. Like skin-tight leopard-print trousers and women”s legs growing out of his body. But it”s not as uncomplicated as that. You see, Rod Stewart made a meaningful contribution not only to my romantic vocation, but also was a protagonist in my socio-musical development.

Let me explain by backtracking to the 1977/78 season. That”s when the man who”d become my stepfather appeared on the scene. I was 11 going on 12, and he was very old indeed. I was still finding my way musically. I”d cheerfully listen to Showaddywaddy, Neil Diamond, Sham 69, Hot Chocolate and Jethro Tull, not yet realising that as an aspiring teenager it was my obligation to choose sides as a vehicle for the expression of my individualism. When stepfather began insinuating himself with us, it emerged that he really liked Rod Stewart. I was thrilled: so did I. And if an old man of 33 years liked what I liked, then I must have been achieving musical maturity. I was like a grown-up, at least musically. So out with the Bay City Rollers and Harpo records, let”s dig Rod together. But then came the awareness that if a really old dude of 33 liked Rod Stewart, then Rod Stewart had to be past it, uncool. Stepfather, who at his advanced age must have been past it too, certainly did not appreciate the cool music produced by the Stranglers (who included that fresh-faced stripling Jet Black). The peroxided hair and Da Ya Think I”m Sexy were the last straw. Rod was out of my good books, and would not return into them until I approached the geriatric age of 33.

Stewart”s romantic life did little to attract atonement for his descent into musical cliché. His cortege of blond partners seemed like evictees from the Playboy Mansion. I found few of them attractive ““ least of all Britt Ekland, who looked like a curious amalgam of porn star, soap actress and desperate housewife. Had Rod Stewart been born 25 years later, his affairs doubtless would have been the subject of reality TV shows on the E! Channel. Starring Jessica Simpson (and what exactly do people see in that preened-up boil?). I cannot deny my superficiality in dumping favourite singers once they become household names not for their music but for their notoriety. Rod Stewart, I decided, would have struggled to pull a toothless hooker in a crackhouse had he not stumbled upon success by singing other people”s songs badly and his own even worse. And, alas, Rod Stewart rarely gave me much reason to believe that I was wrong. Oh, I could have liked Young Turks or Baby Jane in 1983, but on principle I didn”t. Dad Pop, I”d scoff. And look at his fucking housewives” hair!

Only later, in my 30s, did I revisit the music of Rod Stewart (who by then was through plundering the catalogue of Tom Waits). I had deprived myself. It should really be an article of musical faith that “Early Rod” was magnificent. Maggie May, You Wear It Well, Handbags And Gladrags, Angel or Reason To Believe are all wonderful songs performed superbly, though not necessarily invariably superior to alternative versions. But when exactly does the early period end? Some might say in 1975 with Sailing, which was followed by his disposable version of This Old Heart Of Mine. But that can”t be right: a year after Sailing, Stewart released The Killing Of Georgie, one of the earliest chart hits explicitly about homophobic violence (Rod the Mod merits our appreciation for his courage to sing about homosexuality). In 1977, he had hits with fine cover versions of I Don”t Want To Talk About It and The First Cut Is The Deepest, followed by the perfectly amicable sing-along number You”re In My Heart (which rocks for comparing his lady love to Celtic and [Manchester] United). Now that I am over 33, I”m down with Step-dad Rock.

So the cut-off to cool Rod must be 1978. The dreadful Hot Legs (a hit in “78, though an album track from 1977) and that World Cup song for Scotland”s ill-fated Argentine adventure presaged the departure from sanity that was the grammatically criminal Da Ya Think I”m Sexy, a vaguely prurient discofied jingle aimed at people over 30 desperate to retain their youth by swinging their arthritic hips and waving their flabby arms to the unfunky beats of self-parody. Or so my analysis went for nearly 30 years. It is not a great song by any means, but it does not merit the detraction so cordially solicited by the sleeve on which Rod covers his companion”s eyes, thereby precluding the statement of her candid and informed opinion in response to his question, practically coercing an affirmation. The song, it must be said, is quite catchy in the way songs that are great to sing in the shower usually are. If ever I need to own up to having a “guilty pleasure” ““ I feel no guilt over musical pleasure ““ this song might be it.

Stewart had his last stab at pop relevance with his two 1983 hits, and then settled into the comfort zone of singing bland and pointless songs for housewives and chartered accountants who conspired to make his impertinent cover of Tom Waits” Downtown Train a UK Top 10 hit. More recently, Rod enjoyed a revival with his American Songbook series, the first of which, beautifully arranged, was actually pretty good (not that anybody needs Rod Stewart”s interpretations when we can listen to the originals by Robbie Williams), before our boy reverted to flogging that particular equine cadaver to the point of decadent extremes.

When the b

ell tolls for Rod Stewart, as it does for every man, our obituaries will probably deviate wildly. There will be those of us who liked the Mod, those of us whose barely pubescent testicles stirred to the strains of Sailing, those of us who got the disco fever from Rod, those of us who thought he was the heir to Waits or Sinatra, and indeed those of us who despised the old fraud”¦ What we all should agree upon, however, is the timeless charm and warmth of Rod Stewart”s music before he hit 33, as these eight songs show.

Rod Stewart – The Killing Of Georgie (Parts I & II) (1976).mp3
Rod Stewart – You Wear It Well (1972).mp3
Rod Stewart – Tonight’s The Night (1976).mp3
Rod Stewart – I Don’t Want To Talk About It (1977).mp3
Rod Stewart – Gasoline Alley (1970).mp3
Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story (1971).mp3
Rod Stewart – Maggie Mae (1971).mp3
Rod Stewart – You’re In My Heart (1977).mp3

Previously on Pissing off the Taste Police:
Bay City Rollers
Counting Crows
Simply Red
John Denver
Barry Manilow
Lionel Richie
The Carpenters
Billy Joel
Neil Diamond
America