Rod Stewart - Sailing - yea or nay?

[naughty boy]

No need for me to post the clip here, is there? I'm sure you know it's another one from the Fred Harris stable, when music was music and men were men.

[fange]

[clive gash]

Unsure, what does Sloop think?

[The Modernist]

It's as resounding NO from me.

I doubt there's been a more dreary, monotonous melody. Horrible record.

[Footy]

His biggest selling UK single apparently but not his finest moment as far as I'm concerned. I've heard it far too often and it always struck me as dreary anyway.

I voted hmm though as I'm prone to forgive him his trespasses of which there are quite a few.

[Darkness_Fish]

More like "We Are Failing", eh lads? roflmao memecat lol.

[trans-chigley express]

This one always bored me silly.

[Matt Wilson]

Not as good as the Carly Simon song.

[Bent Fabric]

So utterly NOT ubiquitous in my world that I had to go and YouTube it for a listen.

The first thing you notice is "Oh, yeah - Rod Stewart. Nice voice."

That also manages to be the last thing you notice.

It's so sub-anthemic - has all of the ingredients: overlong, drunken singalong melody, vague lyrics, all of this faux nobility...and yet it all adds up to less than nothing.

He'd been in the game for centuries by then - I suppose he was bound to bland out in some massive way.

[harvey k-tel]

When he sings about flying like a bird across the sky, it really puts me in mind of flying like a bird across the sky. That's his genius I suppose.

[Osgood]

I went for hmm. I mean, it's dreary but also a tune that I can happily sing along to with the right amount of booze, cf. Country Roads Take Me Home

[The Slider]

It's pretty dreary but much more exciting than the original, which might be the most plodding thing ever recorded

[Deebank]

Wasn't it re-released during the Falklands or something?
Just for that (whether I imagined it or not) it's a no from me

[Moleskin]

Wasn't it re-released during the Falklands or something?
Just for that (whether I imagined it or not) it's a no from me

As the British task-force sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour on 5 April 1982 - the third day of the Falklands War - the recording of Rod Stewart's "Sailing" was broadcast from the quay's public address system

In 1987 Rod Stewart's "Sailing" was reissued as a charity single after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster off the Flemish port of Zeebrugge,becoming a moderate hit in Belgium's Flemish Region (#24) and also the British Isles (#41 UK/ #30 Ireland)

[sloopjohnc]

A friend of mine who went to high school in England brought the 45 of this back home and I asked him about it. He said it was a huge hit in England. Rod Stewart was popular in the US, of course, but this didn't hit my radar at all. The US was more album oriented at the time, or at least me and my friends were, so this didn't even make a dent in my consciousness.

Listening to it kinda after the fact, it was hard to get excited by it, but I like it. It's a good song.

Last night, I was watching a show on pop singers and they interviewed Roger Daltrey. He said every singer he knew doesn't like the sound of his own voice - except Rod Stewart.

[Sneelock]

When he sings about flying like a bird across the sky, it really puts me in mind of flying like a bird across the sky. That's his genius I suppose.

thank God he uses this power for good and not evil.

[sloopjohnc]

When he sings about flying like a bird across the sky, it really puts me in mind of flying like a bird across the sky. That's his genius I suppose.

thank God he uses this power for good and not evil.

[Ranking Ted]

Dreadful old toss

[Diamond Dog]

Bookends perfectly with Mull Of Kintyre.

[Matt Wilson]

Bookends perfectly with Mull Of Kintyre.

YES!!!