11/27/2025
On this day in 1978, the Rod Stewart single “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” debuted on the Australian charts at #90 (November 27)
This was a pretty controversial song, for a number of reasons.
Even Rod himself confessed:
"If I ever wrote a song which put a fly in the ointment or a spanner in the works - it's this one!”
Firstly, the disco-style song grated on some critics, and many of Rockin’ Rod’s fan base from his Faces and Jeff Beck Group days.
But in a 2007 interview, co-writer Duane Hitchings noted that "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was actually "a spoof on guys from the 'co***ne lounge lizards' of the Saturday Night Fever days.
We Rock and Roll guys thought we were dead meat when that movie and the Bee Gees came out.
The Bee Gees were brilliant musicians and really nice people. No big egos.
Rod, in his brilliance, decided to do a spoof on disco. VERY smart man.
There is no such thing as a 'dumb' super success in the music business."
The song from the “Blondes Have More Fun” LP was written by Stewart, Carmine Appice and Hitchings, although Stewart admitted in his 2012 autobiography to "unconscious plagiarism" of the Jorge Ben Jor song "Taj Mahal", which he had heard while attending the Rio Carnival in 1978.
He also admitted that he had consciously lifted the song's signature synthesizer riff from the string arrangement on Bobby Womack's "(If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It".
When Jorge Ben Jor filed a copyright infringement lawsuit, Stewart agreed to give proceeds from the song to UNICEF.
Furthermore, guitarist Jim Cregan claimed that the song was "inspired in part" by The Rolling Stones' "Miss You".
Ian McLagan, who played electric piano on "Miss You" and has also played with Stewart, claimed that "It's a rip-off of 'Miss You'".
Drummer Carmine Appice told Songfacts: "We were in the studio and 'Miss You' by The Rolling Stones was a big hit.
Rod was always a guy that used to listen to what was going on around him. He was always looking at the charts and listening.
He was a big fan of The Rolling Stones, so when they came out with "Miss You," disco was really big at the time, so he wanted to do some kind of disco-y song, something like 'Miss You,' nothing like Gloria Gaynor.”
Stewart said:
“It was frightening, stirring up so much love and hate at the same time: most of the public loved it; all of the critics hated it.
I can understand both positions."
Appice noted:
“It came out and went to #1 everywhere."
“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” certainly was a worldwide smash hit, going all the way to #1 the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Portugal and Spain, #2 in Argentina, France, New Zealand and Norway, #3 in Belgium, #5 in Ireland, #6 in the Netherlands, #8 in Austria and Switzerland, #9 in Germany and Finland, #11 in Sweden, and #12 in Japan.
Rolling Stone ranked the song #308 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Fun fact: the female lead in the video is the Norwegian model Lillian Muller, who was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1976. She later appeared as "Miss Chemistry" in Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher” video clip.
Click on the link below to watch the clip:
https://youtu.be/Hphwfq1wLJs
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