{"id":815863,"date":"2026-10-27T21:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T21:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815863\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T21:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T21:56:17","slug":"in-1976-rod-stewart-put-his-macho-image-to-one-side-for-a-difficult-subject-now-its-the-song-he-wants-to-be-remembered-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815863\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1976, Rod Stewart put his macho image to one side for a \u201cdifficult subject\u201d. Now, it\u2019s the song he wants to be remembered for"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rod<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

October 27th, 2026 \u00b7 6:09pm GMT <\/p>\n

If you write songs as a profession, or even formerly did so in your day-to-day, does that not make you a songwriter? Rod Stewart<\/a> seems to think not.<\/p>\n

When asked in a 2011 interview with journalist Dean Goodman which song of his he feels most proud of and tends to think about when he wakes up in the morning, Stewart\u2019s response was surprising, to say the least. \u201cI didn\u2019t think about that this morning,\u201d he retorted, adding, \u201cI couldn\u2019t wait to get up and work on my model railway<\/a>, that\u2019s why I\u2019m not a songwriter!\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the circumstances of the interview arriving shortly after he\u2019d picked up his lifetime achievement award from The American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), it was clear that by this point in his career, his priorities were clear: he\u2019s not that interested in writing new material, and would much rather tinker away at his miniature recreation of Stevenson\u2019s Rocket in the garage, neglecting to think of his former glories as a world-renowned songwriter.<\/p>\n

Perhaps he\u2019s still strutting his way around the gaff in a leopard-print leotard humming along to \u2018Do Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy?\u2019 as he potters away on his latest locomotive project, but it\u2019s also fair enough that he\u2019s put his halcyon days behind him and would rather focus on a hobby. <\/p>\n

His half-arsed karaoke set in the Glastonbury legends slot<\/a> in 2025 should only serve as further proof that he\u2019s not too bothered about continuing his legacy. If people only want to hear the hits, then that\u2019s exactly what he\u2019s going to deliver, and he\u2019s going to have as much fun doing it as possible without exerting too much effort. <\/p>\n

Even before his impending retirement in 2027<\/a>, back in 2014, he commented, \u201cIt\u2019s hard work selling new songs with the vast catalogue I\u2019ve got that people want to hear. They pay the money and they want to hear what they want to hear. It\u2019s pointless being self-indulgent.\u201d Recently, he explained that he\u2019s more than happy to don a pink suit and do some people-pleasing, explaining that has always been central to his artistic output. <\/p>\n

\"Rod<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Warner Bros. Records<\/p>\n

That being said, Stewart still has a vast back catalogue of material, filled with often surprising depth, that he can look back on and be proud of, and considering he was asked the question of which song he still feels the most proud of, he was obliged to answer seriously without going off on a tangential riff about trains. After a short period of consideration, the (former) songwriter concluded that a socially-conscious song from the peak of his career in the 1970s was perhaps his crowning achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was to say one song I was really proud of it would be \u2018The Killing of Georgie\u2019,\u201d he finally proclaimed, \u201cbecause it dealt with a very difficult subject in 1976, which is a long time ago.\u201d <\/p>\n

This two-part song, which featured on his seventh solo album, A Night on the Town, deals with the issue of homophobia, something which was rarely discussed in popular culture in such a frank and honest fashion at the time, and tells the story of a character who was brutally beaten and murdered for his sexuality.<\/p>\n

Stewart has previously claimed that the subject of the song is loosely based on the death of a close friend of his, and that although he used some poetic license when telling the story, it\u2019s understandable why he would feel compelled to tell such an important tale of something he felt deeply affected by. He may not consider himself as much of a songwriter these days, but when you\u2019ve got important works like this in your back pocket, it\u2019s hard for him to dismiss the notion that at his high point, he was up there with the best.<\/p>\n

In many ways, \u2018The Killing of Georgie\u2019 remains one of the most revealing songs in Stewart\u2019s catalogue, showing that beneath the swagger, the football scarves and the flamboyant suits was an artist willing to confront subjects that others \u2013 particularly in his position \u2013 might have shied away from.<\/p>\n

Half a century later, it is telling that this is the song he singles out above the chart-toppers and crowd-pleasers. For all his reluctance to call himself a songwriter, Stewart\u2019s legacy may ultimately rest on the moment he used his platform for something far more meaningful than entertaining a crowd in a simply outrageous outfit. Play a record, Karl.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy October 27th, 2026 \u00b7 6:09pm GMT If you write songs as a profession,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[42201,144586,6491,96,1581,24105,67191,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-815863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-1970s","tag-144586","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-pop","tag-rod-stewart","tag-soul","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}