The 1977 novelty song Rod Stewart thought he defined rock and roll with: “Raw, with plenty of fighting guitars”
Rock and roll has never been short on songs about sex. For every track about the glory of being onstage in a touring band, there are just as many where lyricists let their libidos take the lead. Rod Stewart, known for unabashedly sensual songs like ‘Hot Legs’, believed that the rock world arguably needed such tunes.
Then again, there’s a good chance that the sun would burn out of the sky quicker than rock stars could find different ways of singing about sex. Sure, there are tracks by The Beatles that allude to something like that in ‘Please Please Me’, but it didn’t really take a rocket scientist to realise why a single like The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’ worked so well.
There was a line that tended to get crossed a little too much back in the 1970s, though. Most of those tracks came off as a little bit lighthearted, but someone like Gene Simmons making sex the entire persona of his ‘Demon’ character was a little bit too much, coming off less like a cartoonish ghoul and more like a real-life sex predator that happened to mask his desire behind facepaint.
Out of all the songwriters from that time, though, Rod Stewart always brought a certain level of taste to it. After all, he had come from blues, and whereas most blues classics were about love, hearing him turn a corner when making hits like ‘Maggie May’ was one of the high points of his career.
While most would have probably expected him to play that kind of rootsy rock for the rest of his life, seeing him turn a corner into disco and pop music in the 1980s was definitely something we hadn’t seen before. But it’s not like we hadn’t seen some of the dumber tracks that he wrote before since ‘Hot Legs’ already existed.
From those opening blues guitars, you can tell that it’s going to be one of the more goofy entries in his catalogue. While it’s easy to squint your ears when talking about casual sexism, having someone that Stewart only refers to as ‘hot legs’ might not have been the best choice of words nowadays.
Back then, though, no one batted an eye, and Stewart was more than happy to defend the song’s rock credentials, saying, “This is what rock and roll is all about for me: raw, with plenty of fighting guitars, and a steady back beat courtesy of Carmine Appice – known for his short arms and long pockets.”
Granted, he does have a point with the backing track, which almost sounds like something that could have come off of a Rolling Stones jam session in a few spots. But just because something sounds like a hit doesn’t mean it’s automatically in the clear, and looking back on this tune, it feels more like a product from the era of 1970s rock when no one was really thinking too hard.
Still, it’s hard to deny that Stewart at least makes ‘Hot Legs’ work to his advantage. I mean, if you look at what other sex songs he was up against, can we really call this the doofiest horny hit when a track like Billy Squier’s ‘The Stroke’ exists?
Looking back, songs like ‘Hot Legs’ say as much about the culture of rock and roll as they do about the artists themselves. The 1970s were a time when excess and indulgence were not just accepted but celebrated, and that extended to the way sex was portrayed in music.
What might come across as clumsy or outdated today was, at the time, part of a wider language that audiences largely embraced without much scrutiny. That doesn’t necessarily excuse some of the more questionable lyrical choices, but it does provide context for why they existed and why they were successful. Stewart’s approach, while undeniably cheeky, still carried a sense of musicality and craft that elevated it above pure novelty.
The groove, the swagger, and the performance all contribute to a track that endures, even if its themes feel tied to a different era. In that sense, ‘Hot Legs’ stands as both a relic and a reminder of a time when rock music prioritised attitude and energy above all else, for better or worse.
