Record Plant, 1981: synths, DMX, Billy and Patti on the radio
In 1981 at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, Rod Stewart recorded Young Turks for Tonight I’m Yours, released that November on Warner Bros. Jim Cregan and Stewart produced. The single went out in October 1981 in the US. The music came from Carmine Appice, Duane Hitchings, and Kevin Savigar; Stewart wrote the lyrics about young lovers Billy and Patti leaving home. The track leans on synthesizers and an Oberheim DMX drum machine, with Appice’s hi-hat on top. It is Stewart adapting to early-1980s radio without dropping his rough vocal.
Savigar plays synthesizers and Clavinet; Hitchings adds more keys; Jim Cregan takes lead guitar; Jay Davis plays bass; Linda Lewis sings backing vocals. The album version runs about 5:04; the single edit is shorter. Billboard and other trade press flagged the song as melodic rock with a harder edge than a soft ballad. The glossy video ran often on the new MTV, which helped the US climb. Young Turks peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, number one in Canada, number three in Australia, and number 11 in the UK.
Stewart has said the phrase “Young Turks” stuck in his head before he built the story around the runaway couple. On Tonight I’m Yours the song sits with other new-wave-leaning cuts and covers, showing a 36-year-old star updating his sound after disco-era hits. Live, the synth figure and the “young hearts be free tonight” chorus travel cleanly outdoors.
Appice and Hitchings were not long-term Stewart band fixtures; they were in the room for this album chapter and left fingerprints on the title track and on Young Turks. The DMX part was still new on mainstream rock radio in 1981. Stewart’s raspy tenor rides it instead of fighting it. That choice is why the record still reads as an early MTV-era pivot rather than a novelty synth experiment.
The B-side territory around the US single included album mates from Tonight I’m Yours; programmers mostly stayed with the A-side. For listeners who knew Stewart from Maggie May or Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, the new palette was obvious in the first eight bars: machine pulse, bright keys, story lyric.
Young hearts, be free tonight. Time is on your side.
(Rod Stewart, lyric from Young Turks, 1981)
The single’s six weeks in the US Top 10 made it one of Stewart’s defining early-1980s hits, next to the album’s title track. Later remasters keep the same Record Plant arrangement: DMX pulse, Savigar’s synth lines, Stewart’s vocal slightly thinner and higher than his 1970s gravel ballads.
Cue the DMX and the first synth figure, then the Billy-and-Patti story. Young Turks is Stewart at the Record Plant proving he could ride early MTV-era pop without losing the rasp.
Maya | 12 October 2026
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I argued with my brother about Young Turks for years. This is my exhibit A. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable. More of this please.
Léa | 13 October 2026
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Read this, then put Young Turks on loud. That was the move. Might be recency bias but I do not care today. Fight me.
Bea | 14 October 2026
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Simple song, big feeling. Young Turks still does that.
Louise | 15 October 2026
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Simple song, big feeling. Young Turks still does that. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable.
Marc G. | 15 October 2026
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Not overrated. If anything people forgot how tight Young Turks is. Might be recency bias but I do not care today.