Alongside his work with the Jeff Beck Group and later Faces, Rod Stewart embarked on a solo career, debuting with the 1969 album An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down. Although the album was a laudable starting point, Stewart’s solo endeavours soared to unforeseen heights in 1971 with the arrival of his third studio album, Every Picture Tells a Story. Notably, the album featured Stewart’s breakout hit, ‘Maggie May’, in which he realised the full breadth of his songwriting abilities.
Remaining remarkably prolific throughout the mid-70s, Stewart became renowned for his eclecticism, with the only constant being his rich, raspy vocal. Employing the broad histories of folk, rock, soul, and classic R&B, Stewart could move hips with chart-topping hits like ‘You Wear It Well’ or unfurl compelling and affecting narratives in lyrical epics like ‘The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)’.
Steward liked to roll with the times, always open to new methods of music production and evolving subgenres. In the late 1970s, he was particularly enamoured with the disco scene, demonstrating his dancefloor compatibility with the enduring hit ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’. Moving into the 1980s, Stewart embraced the contemporary electro trend while working on Tonight I’m Yours, using drum machines to great effect on the hit single ‘Young Turks’.
Stewart’s drummer, Carmine Appice, discussed the song’s development in a 2004 interview with Songfacts. “Rod was always trying to be on the cutting edge at that time, so we did drum machine stuff,” he remembered. “Duane had just gotten a sequencer, so we started screwing around and came up with the chords and melodies.”
“We presented it to Rod. This one was easy because we used the whole concept that we came up with. We just transferred it from the 8-track that Duane had going right onto the 24-track. We used the drum machine and everything. Once we gave Rod the music, he wrote the lyrics,” he added.
Characteristic of Stewart’s writing style, ‘Young Turks’ unravels a vivid narrative in which a young couple, Billy and Patti, defy the expectations of their parents and wider society to live life on their own terms. The title is an English term for the subversive youngster derived from insurgents in the Ottoman Empire during the late 19th century.
Over the past four decades, Stewart has frequently folded ‘Young Turks’ into his live repertoire as a personal favourite. “Definitely one of my favourites to sing live, and, if I may say so as a songwriter, the area in which I’m most comfortable,” he said of the track in the liner notes for his Storyteller compilation album. “The telling of a story with a beginning and an end is very difficult within the confines of a rock and roll song.”
Listen to one of Rod Stewart’s greatest narrative-based creations below. The official music video became an early MTV classic in 1981.
