Released 10 November 1978 Genre Disco, new wave | Recorded 1978 | |
B-side "Dirty Weekend" (UK)
"Scarred and Scared" (US) Format 7-inch single, 12-inch single Length 5:31 (album version)
6:29 (12-inch version) | ||
"Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" is a song by British singer Rod Stewart from his 1978 album Blondes Have More Fun. It was written by Stewart, Carmine Appice and Duane Hitchings, though it incorporates elements of the melody from the song "Taj Mahal" by Jorge Ben Jor and the string arrangement from the song "Put Something Down On It" by Bobby Womack.
Contents
The song featured on Stewart's album Blondes Have More Fun, and was released as a single in November 1978. It spent one week at the top of the British charts in December 1978 and four weeks at the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 in February 1979. Billboard ranked it number four on its Top Singles of 1979 year-end chart. It also topped the charts in Australia for two weeks.
Royalties from the song were donated to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Stewart performed the song at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in January 1979.
Rolling Stone ranked the song at #308 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Background and writing
Carmine Appice, who played drums on this song told Songfacts: "This was a story of a guy meeting a chick in a club. At that time, that was a cool saying. If you listen to the lyrics, 'She sits alone, waiting for suggestions, he's so nervous...' it's the feelings of what was going on in a dance club. The guy sees a chick he digs, she's nervous and he's nervous and she's alone and doesn't know what's going on, then they end up at his place having sex, and then she's gone." In a 2007 interview, co-writer Duane Hitchings noted that "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was
a spoof on guys from the 'cocaine 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.
It has been noted that Stewart created parts of the song through musical plagiarism. A copyright infringement lawsuit by Brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor claimed the chorus of the song had been derived from his song "Taj Mahal". The case was "settled amicably" according to Jorge Ben Jor, in Ben Jor's favor. Stewart admitted in his 2012 autobiography to "unconscious plagiarism" of the Ben Jor song, 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". Stewart contends that it is legal to lift a line from any song's arrangement as long as the core melody line isn't copied.
Reception
The song was criticized by many in the rock press as a betrayal of Stewart's blues-oriented rock roots, due to its disco-like arrangement, but Stewart and others were quick to point out that other widely respected artists, such as Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, had also released disco-flavoured songs. However, the song has since experienced some retrospective acclaim as Rolling Stone placed the song at #308 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
N-Trance featuring Rod Stewart version
In 1997, the song was remixed by English techno-house group N-Trance for their second album Happy Hour and features lyrics from the Millie Jackson version (as performed by vocalist Kelly Llorenna). It was featured in the film A Night at the Roxbury the following year.