# In Rod Stewart's song Young Turks, why didn’t Patti give birth to a eight-pound baby girl? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083 "2016-01-13T23:15:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/21 "2016-01-15T00:58:56Z")
Maybe I’m hearing it wrong, but if the chorus says “young hearts,” why is the song called Young Turks? He doesn’t even call them that once. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/22 "2016-01-15T01:00:13Z")
[quote=“Elendil\_s\_Heir, post:11, topic:743083”] A counterexample - “American Child” by Phil Vassar: “Seven pounds three ounces, she’s got my nose And she’s into my heart, as deep as it goes With a promise that’s more than just someone’s last name Anyone’s equal, in late August came An American child…” [/QUOTE] (I always like that the baby was such a good size - big enough to be healthy but not too big.) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/23 "2016-01-15T01:39:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It could be worse. One of my aunts had a kid who was nearly 12 pounds, and another aunt had triplets, the lightest of whom was 6 pounds 1. My family, as you might guess, tends towards big babies. > > When a family friend had a baby at 6 pounds even, I asked “Oh no, what’s wrong with her?”. Heh. I, at a petite 8lbs 3oz, was over two pounds lighter than my younger brother. But even 10lbs 6oz was small compared to our grandfather who was 12lbs. I too tend to assume that a sub-7lb baby is sickly or early. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/24 "2016-01-15T02:42:15Z")
> [@Lucky\_13](#): > > Maybe I’m hearing it wrong, but if the chorus says “young hearts,” why is the song called Young Turks? He doesn’t even call them that once. I suspect that he was worried that if he had used the chorus, “young hearts run free tonight,” as a title, then people would think he was covering Candi Staton’s disco hit from '76. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/25 "2016-01-15T07:52:13Z")
The song’s original bridge detailed Billy and Patti’s encounter with a doctor engaging in groundbreaking but unethical experiments in eugenics. But “in vitro fertilization” just didn’t scan well, so Stewart dropped it. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/26 "2016-01-15T23:54:46Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Stewart wrote the lyrics with the music by three men. Fact: many men want at least one boy and they want the first child to be a masculine child (paging Luca Brasi). Plus from what I remember what his girlfriend of the 1970s Britt Ekland said, Stewart is not the most admirable man in the world. > > ``` > You can guess about why but Stewart expresses a common wish among men for centuries and different cultures (look at the gender imbalance of China's one-policy child). > > ``` See, I took it as appealing to the grandparents’ values, since that’s who the guy is talking to. It’s a juxtaposition of them going wild vs. doing the old style “proper” thing but still having the grandfather a big, strapping grandson. ---
**Author:** ![XanderCrews](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ee59a6/32.png) [@XanderCrews](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XanderCrews)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083/27 "2016-01-16T13:48:31Z")
Maybe it was just a baby boy. 50% chance, that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-rod-stewarts-song-young-turks-why-didn-t-patti-give-birth-to-a-eight-pound-baby-girl/743083.md?page=1)