The late Marc Bolan was never overly concerned with consistency. Take T.Rex’s single Hot Love, for example, released on 12 February 1971. A full two and a half minutes of it – more than half its length – is filled solely by the repeated line ‘La, la, la, la-la-la-laaaa’. While we would never be so churlish as to label this lazy songwriting on the part of Bolan, it’s hardly adventurous – which might make the casual observer assume the same of the follow-up single. Right?
Wrong. Get It On, released on July 2, 1971, is a singularly impressive bit of composition, whether we’re referring to the slick, cheeky riff that anchors the song or the vivid imagery with which Bolan peppers his lyrics. Opaque, shimmering and rather beautiful, phrases such as ‘hubcap diamond star halo’ appear to mean very little, but that never stopped John Lennon and Paul McCartney, did it?
The inspiration for the song, said Bolan, was Chuck Berry’s Little Queenie; you can hear the ad-libbed line ‘…and meanwhile, I’m still thinking’ from that song as Get It On fades out.
The song was recorded at Trident Studios in London and produced by Tony Visconti, who soon found greater success with David Bowie, Bolan’s friend and arch-rival for the glam-rock crown.
A stellar cast of session musicians gathered for the recording: Rick Wakeman played several piano glissandos, or slides, throughout the song, and was paid a princely £9 for his efforts; four saxophone tracks were played by Ian McDonald of King Crimson; and Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, previously known as The Turtles, sang backing vocals.
Get It On was the perfect summer song for 1971, occupying the top spot on the UK charts for four weeks, and reaching No.10 in the USA. In America, it was retitled Bang A Gong (Get It On), as a song of the same name by the group Chase already existed. This alternative title was rewritten as Get It On (Bang A Gong) on an insipid cover version in April 1985 by The Power Station, a short-lived supergroup formed by the late vocalist Robert Palmer, Andy Taylor and John Taylor of Duran Duran and Chic drummer Tony Thompson.
If nothing else, this version – a worldwide hit – reintroduced Bolan’s song to a new generation of listeners. Sadly, the man himself didn’t live to see it, having died in a 1977 car accident at the age of 29. His legacy is secured with this single and the other hits released in this golden early70s period.
The original Get It On was also the template for Prince’s Cream. And not just the melody: compare and contrast Bolan's ‘you’re dirty-sweet and you’re my girl’ with Prince's ‘you’re filthy-cute and baby you know it’. In case we didn’t get the point, Prince did it again on Peach.
"I honestly believe Get It On was one of the best things I've ever done," Bolan told Record Mirror in 1971. "The only kind of criticism I'm going to accept about it is that if someone can say, 'Well, that's out of tune or the guitar work is crap.' OK, but I know it isn't."
