Billy Bolan

Bang a Gong, Get it on, get it on. Arise, awake, get out of your house and into the street. Marc Bolan gave to music a fine contradiction. Here was a guy who looked like he rocked out since kindergarten, but he sings these songs about white swans and dancing since he was twelve. The band is called T-Rex and they are so ferocious that at one point of time they had no drummer. Just a guy on bongos. But the man’s got rhythm, and he has got that quiet voice that whispers in your ear. It tells you to wear hard soled shoes and clickety-clack them on the pavement. I used to dance to Bolan all the time. Then I saw Billy Elliot. What a movie. Cosmic Dancer, playing to a little kid jumping on the bed with a wallpaper of fading sunflowers in the background. Bolan, jumping, shorts and Van Gogh. These are some of my favourite things, never mind the dog bites and bee stings.

Now the two are inexorably tied to each other. I cannot sing a song without picturing the movie. But, for once, that is perfectly allright. Cosmic Dancer is a song with the line “I was dancing since I was aaah”. That’s Marc Bolan for you, he couldn’t think of something, so wrote aaah. But it fits and we all dance when we are aaah.

Bang a Gong was after he split with Steve Took, yes Steve Peregrine Took, so it has a lot more instruments. It was just the two of them before hand.

Be careful when you dance to I love to boogie. There have been incidents of smashed crockery and furniture in our hostel because of the song.

Have fun.

From the soundtrack of Billy Elliot –

T.Rex – Cosmic Dancer [mp3]

T.Rex – Bang a Gong (Get it On) [mp3]

T.Rex – I Love to Boogie – [mp3]