Category: 1975-1979

“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” (1978) – Rod Stewart * Written by Rod Stewart and Carmine Appice * 45: “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” / “Scarred and Scared” * LP: Blondes Have More Fun * Produced by Tom Dowd * Label: Warner Bros.

With “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” Rod Stewart materialized as a fully-committed creature of mass appeal, becoming a paridigmatic music biz example of one who surrenders all hip credibility to do so. Although the chart-topping song rode the disco bandwagon with abandon, another aural aspect qualified it as classic late-seventies time capsule fodder: the opening five notes in its main synthesizer riff sounded like a reshuffling of the alien tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This association had preteens hooked – if only subconsciously – the moment they heard those notes streaming through their transistors. The popularity of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” eventually brought attention to its chorus’s similarity to a song called “Taj Mahal” by Jorge Ben – a Brazilian radio hit Stewart admitted to having heard in Rio de Janeiro. A reroute of “Sexy’s” profits to UNICEF averted a legal mess. In his autobiography, though, Stewart admitted to intentionally mimicking the string arrangement in Bobby Womack’s “If You Want My Love (Put Something Down on It)” (1975) for his opening synthesizer riff, knowing that arrangements couldn’t be copyrighted.

“Dancing the Night Away” (1977) – The Motors * Written by Andy McMaster and Gordon Hann * 45: “Dancing the Night Away” (edit) / “Whiskey and Wine” * LP: 1 * Producer: Robert John Lange

The Motors, on “Dancing the Night Away” (produced by “Mutt” Lange), sound like a rock band for the ages. The album version of the track plays twice as long as the edited 45 version, but both have their merits. The album track lets us bliss out on Bram Tchaikovsky and Nick Garvey’s guitars during the extended intro, while the single version trims it off and saves it for us to experience only as a yearning bridge. (The “Dancing the Night Away” 45 also stands out for being a double-sided 1977 killer, with “Whiskey and Wine” on side B.) The song’s lower register guitar octaves in the verses sound like vintage Cheap Trick, whose debut album appeared the same year and who would later cover this song badly. Although the Motors had some future UK hits, they’d never rise to the level of musical authority they demonstrated right out of the gate.

“Alla fiera dell’est” (1976) – Angelo Branduardi * Written by Angelo Branduardi * LP: Alla fiera dell’est * Arrangements and direction by Maurizio Fabrizio * Label: Polydor

Song created by the Italian troubadour Branduardi with circular, repetitive lyrics reminiscent of “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” or “This Is the House that Jack Built.” With images, musical motifs, and instrumentation that tapped in to historical traditions from Israel to the UK, the song became a familiar nursery rhyme in short order, and Branduardi would perform it as a leaping pied piper. It tells the tale of a fairground purchase of a mouse, which sets off a chain events that ultimately requires intervention from the Almighty. An English version of the song, with lyrics translated by Pete Sinfield as “Highdown Fair,” came out in 1978.