Rod scraps some old hits Do ya think it’s silly?
NO
Even by rock star standards, I was pretty awful,’ Rod Stewart once admitted. And, although he was talking about his track record with women, it could also apply to some of his lyrics.
Now 74 and happily married to his third wife, Penny Lancaster, a grandad several times over and a knight of the realm, Sir Rod is reflecting on his past and thinking better of some of it.
Not wanting to fall foul of the #Metoo movement, he’s banned certain songs from his repertoire, especially when singing at lucrative corporate gigs.
And he’s quite right to do so. Have you really listened to his lyrics? Take Hot Legs, a textbook example of how women were objectified in 1977. ‘Hot legs you’re well-equipped/hot legs oh your p***y’s whipped/hot legs I just love your lips,’ he croons, while comparing a lover to ‘an alley cat,’ pointing out that she’s 17, asking her to ‘bring your mother too’ and wondering ‘are you still in school?’ It’s all, in a word, gross.
If young fans were to hear the songs he doesn’t want to perform in front of them, they would surely be repulsed. Rod’s No 1 single Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? was always a bit of a joke, but the lyrics of Tonight’s The Night (‘Don’t say a word my virgin child/just let your inhibitions run wild’) simply aren’t funny.
Who wants to be remembered for songs that people snigger at? Some older fans may feel horrified that their idol is seeking to self-censor, but I think Rod’s sensibly doing what most women hope men will do following #Metoo: reflecting on his past behaviour towards women and improving it as much as he can.
Clinging on to his grosser offerings will only distract future generations from falling in love with his beautiful, evocative voice on the music that should endure. This move is going to help his legacy. After all, who wants to be remembered for songs people snigger at?
YES
The moment I heard that Sir Rod Stewart was ‘cleaning up’ his musical repertoire because he feared falling foul of the #Metoo movement, I nearly spat out my suggestive breakfast banana.
But what a terrible shame. When such louche delights as Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? are considered offensive, how long can it be until we start covering up piano legs and leaving the microphone on the stand, lest the handling of it cause arcane desires to arise in susceptible members of the audience?
According to a Sunday paper’s ‘source’: ‘Lyrics penned in the Seventies and Eighties, when attitudes to sex and courting were very different, do not reflect how [Rod] feels today.’
We can all imagine how the 74-year-old feels today — wear and tear is no respecter of heroically notched bedposts, and we all end up making the same noises when we get up as we used to make when we got down.
But I hope he is taking this vow of aural chastity to save his own blushes, rather than because, as the source said, ‘in the wake of the ongoing #Metoo movement . . . he would hate to offend any young fans’.
Rock ’n’ roll has always been synonymous with sex. Even punk — as unerotic a musical movement as ever there was — made waves because its flagship band was called The S** Pistols.
Take away the bumping, grinding and leering inherent in the best popular music, and what you have left is Ed Sheeran, who surely has the effect of a bucket of cold bromide on any redblooded music-lover. take away the slightly risque suggestion, and you take away much of British music’s charm and sense of fun.
So I would urge Sir Rod instead to double down on his entendres and amp up the bum-wiggling burlesque.
Although, at his age, he should be more worried about having a nasty fall.
Clinging on to his grosser offerings will only distract future generations from falling in love with his beautiful, evocative voice on the music that should endure
Take away the bumping, grinding and leering inherent in the best popular music, and what you have left is Ed Sheeran