Did Rod Stewart have the most offensive run of singles in music history?
It is disappointing that a man like Rod Stewart has achieved such astounding success and respect, considering he has built much of his career on blatant misogyny. The worst of his lyrics feature him pining over considerably younger girls – returning to that topic quite often in his career.
The old excuse that ‘it was a different time’ sometimes emerges when songs from the 1960s and ‘70s are dug up and scrutinised for their gross and borderline illegal lyrics. Yet, there is absolutely no excuse to be singing about finding schoolgirls attractive, and it is baffling that Stewart got away with doing so on multiple occasions.
The most startling example is his 1977 hit ‘Hot Legs’ (yes, this was somehow a hit), which featured on Stewart’s album Foot Loose and Fancy Free. The song instantly gets off to a bad start when Stewart sings, “Who’s that knocking on my door?/ It’s gotta be a quarter to four/ Is it you again coming ’round for more?” – we soon come to realise that Stewart is referring to a schoolgirl (“Hot legs/ You’re still in school”), which gives those opening lines an even more uncomfortable meaning. The girl in question is coming around for a bit of ‘fun’ after the end of the school day, presumably still wearing her uniform.
The entire song is simply Stewart objectifying a young girl, seeing her as nothing more than a pair of long legs (“Hot legs/ Wearing me out/ Hot legs/ You can scream and shout”), even making school-themed phallic jokes, with obscene lyrics such as “You keep my pencil sharp”. It is absolutely grim. Stewart once referred to the track as a “dirty, rude, shagging song”, seemingly unable to see that the piece is more than that. It’s a vile reflection of a culture that fosters the sexualisation of young girls before they’ve even reached adulthood.
The allure of impressionable, inexperienced girls has, sadly, always been rife in our patriarchal society, and Stewart’s track disgustingly encapsulates this ongoing, deeply rooted issue. Songs like these downplay the matter’s seriousness and indefensibility, helping to perpetuate a culture in which children are sexualised.
We are currently living in an era where some of the most popular porn categories include ‘teen’ and ‘schoolgirl’, suggesting that, as a society, we haven’t progressed from the ‘70s as much as we’d like to think. Stewart last played ‘Hot Legs’ live in November 2023, and according to Setlist, he has performed the track a total of 1273 times. Stewart continues to promote a culture that enables rape, paedophilia and objectification, yet he is routinely praised as a musical icon, even today.
In what might be the most offensive run of releases in history, the B-sides to ‘Hot Legs’ are ‘I Was Only Joking’ and ‘You’re Insane’, with the latter being the worst contender. Shaming a woman for doing hard drugs and indulging in hedonistic partying – things Stewart was no stranger to back in the day – the song is one big misogynistic tirade. While the subject seems to be of age (although he does have a penchant for calling her “child”), that doesn’t stop Stewart from expressing his rampant sexist beliefs, scolding the woman for acting a certain way before warning her of the dangers of her behaviour.
“One of these nights, child, it won’t be long/ Somebody somewhere who’s big and strong/ In a dark alley, a bloodstained coat/ He’ll stick his long thing right down your throat,” he sings. It’s a shocking verse that paints a rather vivid picture of sexual violence, with Stewart hardly condemning the idea.
Just a year before these tracks, Stewart released ‘Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)’, in which he sings about sleeping with a “virgin child”, coercing her into satisfying him, “Don’t deny your man’s desire/ You’d be a fool to stop this tide/ Spread your wings and let me come inside”. This song is played by Stewart on his current tour, having played it a whopping 1530 times in his career. Clearly, Stewart, now 79, is comfortable singing about the sexualisation of young, yet here he remains, playing to crowded arenas and getting labelled a “legend”. What’s legendary about that?
Elsewhere, Stewart covered the song ‘Good Morning Little Schoolgirl’ in 1964 (originally written by Sonny Boy Williamson), which features lines like “Can I come home with you/ Tell your mama and your papa/ I once was a schoolboy too”. While Stewart was 19 when he recorded it, making it slightly less weird, the lyrics are creepy, regardless, and it was definitely an odd choice of track to cover.
The singer’s ability to prosper in spite of tracks like these reflects the music industry’s championing and protection of male artists, no matter the morality of their lyrics, while many female artists struggle even to get taken seriously. The fact that Stewart is still singing many of these gross songs today while female artists of the same age are routinely scrutinised and forced to work harder and ‘age gracefully’ to succeed is indicative of society’s – and the music industry’s – misogynistic double standards.
