Music I used to listen to

Discovering T-Rex in my teen years had something about it of finding dinosaur bones in your backyard. Alternative/grunge was mainstream, so you had to dig further in a way. Not that I was trying. I didn't like Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, SoundGarden, Green Day, etc. Or anyways, I may have listened to them from time to time, but I never bought their albums. I bought Radiohead. I bought John Lee Hooker. And I bought T-Rex.

Then there was discovering that T-Rex used to be the flower child, Tyrannosaurus Rex, in what would seem to be a vindication of the cliche about every rock band's ultra-naive folk period as depicted in This is Spinal Tap. But I listened to T-Rex from the start because of their simple hooks - their lean freshness sustained by the odd. Bolan was always about the hooks. And he carried a melody very, very well.

Listening to Tyrannosaurus Rex, that sense of returning to the melodic and uncluttered was even greater. And I think it was so because Marc Bolan's duo with Steve Peregrin Took (!) had a depth that was lacking as Bolan's drive towards glam rock, and hence his split with Took, showed up his hook-based songs too often in a glaring, vapid light. I think Took was that necessary provider of the weird and the odd, the suspensions and inversions and all the musical terms I don't know about because I'm not Rick Beato; the counterpoint that was more than counterpoint because it was a deepness, it matched the hooks and grooves so well. I remember some of their pure, simple tunes haunting me for several days in the high school hallways one rainy autumn.

Like this one:






I mean, that's a Hobbit song. Not an Elvish song. But a Hobbit song that was picked up way back when, before any Hobbit can recall its origins, as a Took or Baggins was wandering along some forest edge or field and overheard Elves singing, and so adopted it. Or the part of it he could remember. You can picture four or so Hobbits humming and singing it among themselves as they make their long trek on foot.

And I know. The hippy faux Lord of the Rings fantasy poetic lyrics (and sometime album art), dedicating one of their albums to Kahlil Gibran, etc. And to repeat: the full name of his back-up vocalist percussionist and general other instruments player was Steve Peregrin Took. I love that. He was a genius. So was Marc Bolan. I hope they are both making music in heaven.

And you know what? There are worse things. Far worse things.