Shane: Locating Drama at the Frontier of Change

A lone rider makes his way down wooded slopes into a beautiful sunlit valley. To swooning strings he steers his chestnut horse across the plain. A young blue-eyed boy with a rifle is stalking a deer that drinks at the stream. Both boy and deer look up as the rider approaches. The boy runs back to a log cabin where his mother sings as she prepares supper. Outside his father is chopping wood. 

‘Somebody's comin', Pa!’
‘Well, let him come.’

The rider is white-hatted and golden haired, and wears a fringed buckskin jacket and an ornate gun belt. He is Shane (Alan Ladd), a drifter with a past he’s trying to forget.

Shane accepts the offer of the homesteader, Joe Starrett (Van Heflin), to help out around the farm. Soon he has tidied away his six-shooter, and swapped his buckskins for everyday shirt and trousers. But Shane finds himself caught up in a bitter land dispute between the local farmers and ranchers. Ruthless cattle baron Rufus Ryker has hired a gang of bearded ruffians to harass the humble homesteaders out of the valley, and the newcomer feels compelled to intervene.

Can brooding, enigmatic Shane escape his past? Will he return to his brutal life as a gunslinger? Is there any other way?

Shane: A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.

Marian: We'd all be much better off if there wasn't a single gun left in this valley - including yours.

The splendid 1953 movie ‘Shane’ was directed by George Stevens. A number of factors set it apart from more run-of-the-mill Westerns. 

First there is the glorious cinematography. The big blue skies and snow-capped Teton mountains just look stunning. 

Then there are the tender relationships: between Shane and Starrett’s son Joey (Brandon De Wilde) who so admires the stranger; between Shane and Starrett, who respect each other despite their obvious differences; between Shane and Starrett’s wife Marian (Jean Arthur), who both recognise they cannot act on their instinctive attraction.

‘Joe, hold me. Don't say anything, just hold me – tight.’

There are also the brilliant set-pieces: the welcoming supper served up by Marian culminating in a generous portion of lattice-topped apple pie; young Joey’s wide-eyed look of amazement as Shane noisily demonstrates how to shoot a revolver; the cold-blooded killing of homesteader Torrey by a black-hatted, black-gloved gunman (Jack Pallance); Torrey’s funeral on Cemetery Hill - hats off, ‘Abide with Me’, children fidgeting and a dog whimpering over the coffin.

‘We can't give up this valley and we ain't gonna do it. This is farmin' country, a place where people can come and bring up their families. Who is Ruf Ryker or anyone else to run us away from our own homes? He only wants to grow his beef. And what we want to grow up is families, to grow 'em good and grow 'em up strong, the way they was meant to be grown.’

Finally there is the awareness that ‘Shane’ is a fiction located in historical events: the Wyoming range wars of the late 19th century. Most of the disputed territory had been settled by ranchers that herded their cattle freely on the open range. But the Homestead Acts of the 1860s brought an influx of small farmers who fenced off their properties, leading to competition for land and water. The ranchers accused the homesteaders of rustling and embarked on a campaign of intimidation.

In ‘Shane’ Starrett articulates the point of view of the homesteaders. He is the voice of change and progress.

'These old-timers, they just can't see it yet, but runnin' cattle on an open range just can't go on forever. It takes too much space for too little results. Those herds aren't any good, they're all horns and bone. Now cattle that is bred for meat and fenced in and fed right - that's the thing. You gotta pick your spot, get your land, your own land. Now a homesteader, he can't run but a few beef. But he can sure grow grain and cut hay. And then what with his garden and the hogs and milk, well, he'll make out all right.' 

Although Ryker is clearly a villain, he is still given an opportunity to put the counter argument; to set out the ranchers’ case.

'Look, Starrett, when I come to this country, you weren't much older than your boy there. We had rough times, me and other men that are mostly dead now. I got a bad shoulder yet from a Cheyenne arrowhead. We made this country. Found it and we made it. With blood and empty bellies. The cattle we brought in were hazed off by Indians and rustlers. They don't bother you much anymore because we handled 'em. We made a safe range out of this. Some of us died doin' it, but we made it. And then people move in who've never had to rawhide it through the old days. They fence off my range, and fence me off from water. Some of 'em like you plough ditches, take out irrigation water. And so the creek runs dry sometimes and I've got to move my stock because of it. And you say we have no right to the range. The men that did the work and ran the risks have no rights?'

‘Shane’ is a memorable drama in part because the action occurs at the frontier of social change. The upheaval and unrest give the story extra resonance and meaning. This was a real human conflict.

'You talk about rights. You think you've got the right to say that nobody else has got any.'

It’s notable that a number of other great Westerns are similarly set around historical transition: ‘Red River’ (1948) relates the story of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail; the dark events in ‘The Searchers’ (1956) are set in the aftermath of the Civil War; ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ (1962) marks the end of the Old West with the arrival of law and order, the railroad and statehood.

I would often advise young Planners embarking on a Pitch first to identify the cultural change that was impacting their sector – because where there is change, you’ll also find energy, interest and attention. If you can locate the brand at the vanguard of this change, characterising it as pioneer, as a vehicle to the future, then you’ll be set fair.

At the end of ‘Shane’ our hero is forced to pick up his six-shooter once more in order to defend the cause of the homesteaders. He realises he cannot escape his past or his destiny.

'A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can't break the mould. I tried it and it didn't work for me… Joey, there's no living with a killing. There's no going back from one. Right or wrong, it's a brand. A brand sticks. There's no going back.’ 

Shane rides off into the darkness. In tears young Joey shouts after him:

'Shane. Shane! Come back! Bye, Shane.’

'Tribal War,
We don't want no more of that.
I give Jah praises in the morning,
When I hear the people sing.
They start sittin' up and lickin' a puff.
One by one, they take a lickel sup,
Say that the war is over.
We now see ourselves in unity,
Celebratin' with better coli,
Now that the war is over.’
George Nooks, ‘Tribal War’ (Joe Gibbs)

No. 342

Nina Hamnett, the Queen of Bohemia: What Lies Beneath

Nina Hamnett, ‘Portrait of a Woman’ 1917

I recently visited a fine retrospective of the work of Nina Hamnett at Charleston, East Sussex.

Born of military stock in Tenby, Wales in 1890, Hamnett rebelled against formal education and found a haven in art. She studied at the Pelham Art School and then the London School of Art, earned money as a life model and found a job as a designer at the Bloomsbury-run Omega Workshops. 

Hamnett embarked on a flamboyant life of clubs and cafes, pubs and parties in London and Paris. Cutting a dash in her modernist bob, she socialised with Fry and Pound; Modigliani and Picasso; Diaghilev, Stein and Cocteau. She sang sea shanties to Gide, danced for Satie, ate caviar with Stravinsky and took laudanum with the occultist Aleister Crowley. She drank prodigiously, had wild affairs with both genders, and jigged nude on a restaurant table in Montparnasse. 

‘A lady was the last thing I wanted to be.’

Nina Hamnett, ‘Still Life’ 1918

Having read of Hamnett’s reputation as ‘the Queen of Bohemia’, it was surprising to encounter her work. 

Her still lives are quiet, austere and understated. Jugs, cups, notepads and newspapers are carefully assembled on the table; a glass throws a shadow; a book asks to be picked up. These are close-cropped, intense meditations on familiar objects and everyday routines.

Her portraits are similarly reflective. A woman in her study reads intently, her head supported on one hand, a bottle of wine at her side. A man in a shirt and tie reclines on a bed and looks us straight in the eye. A female student in a smart blue dress rests a protective hand on her notebook. A formidable landlady sits behind a defensive wall of lamp, cup and saucer, music stand and rolling pin. A slender, fine-boned male dancer regards us with pursed lips.  

Ignoring social status, Hamnett seems intent on revealing something of the sitter’s interior life. We are meeting each of them uninhibited and alone.

‘My ambition is to paint psychological portraits that shall accurately represent the spirit of the age.’

Nina Hamnett, The Student

The dancer and author Lady Constance Stewart-Richardson had developed a scandalous reputation for wearing risqué costumes. Hamnett painted her serious, soberly dressed and pensive.

‘They all flocked to my portrait expecting to see an almost nude woman. They were bitterly disappointed, and Constance and I laughed.’

I left the exhibition considering the distance between reputation and reality.

Hamnett was indeed a hedonist, an icon of the Roaring Twenties. But, as the show reveals, she was also a thoughtful, psychological painter with a penetrating insight into her subjects. 

In my career I have known great wits that were entirely serious about their work. I have been acquainted with cavalier characters that created little of any worth. I have encountered luminous talent with the disposition of an accountant. We must learn to separate the painting from the performance; the personality from the product; the life from the lifestyle.

Sadly in her later years Hamnett spent too much time propping up the bar at the Fitzroy Tavern, and her career went into decline. She died in 1956, having fallen from her bedsit window and been impaled on the railings below. She was 66.

Myself, 1920, Photograph of Nina Hamnett (London Library)

'Sometimes I want you close.
Sometimes I want my space.
Just know I'm gonna call if I need you.
But it's not my job to please you.
Never been your average girl.’

Mahalia, 'Simmer’ (W Hector / J Harding / F Joseph / D Ogulu / J Christian / M Burkmar / K Radical)

No 341

‘I Like You’: The Challenges of Expressing Affection

Henri Fantin-Latour, La Lecture

'Liking one person is an extra reason for liking another.’
E M Forster

Like many people I came out of lockdown with a new-found fondness for my neighbours and local storekeepers; with a commitment to embark on a fresh chapter of cordiality and kindness. 

I found, however, that writing that fresh chapter would be rather challenging.

Lying in bed one morning, reflecting on my pandemic experiences, I determined that, broadly speaking, the mass of the population is warm-hearted and well-intentioned. People are amiable. I like people.

Perhaps I could put a figure on human affability.

‘That’s it!’ I decided to myself. ‘I like 95% of people.’

This is not to say that I think 95% of the public are paradigms of good behaviour, charismatic characters and potential pals. Just that it’s completely possible to have a pleasant conversation with the vast majority of them – about the variable weather, the participants on Gogglebox, the return of ABBA or plans for supper this evening.

When I revealed my new positive perspective at a dinner party, it was greeted with disbelief. 

‘You’re naïve, Jim. Humanity is really not that nice.’

Being somewhat timid in my convictions, I promptly adjusted the figure down to 80%. Nonetheless I still felt the theme worth pursuing. 

Next I decided that if people are so amiable, I ought to evolve my own engagement with the world.

I suspect I have a tendency to sceptical glances, sharp remarks and ironic gestures. My conversation is littered with parentheses and I communicate my feelings in cautious, caveated ways. I find it difficult to express affection. 

I resolved that I should emerge from the pandemic a more direct, open and honest individual. I would do away with artifice and affectation, cynicism and sarcasm. I would smile at strangers and be genial towards pets. I would be attentive when people spoke about minor ailments, travel routes, parking and bins. I would tell friends and acquaintances how much I liked them.

'I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.’
Audrey Hepburn

I decided I would test out my new bonhomie at Michelle’s drinks party, an event that was attended by a good many former colleagues and associates.

Across a crowded room I spotted Toby.

Although Toby had worked for another agency, through many encounters at client meetings and industry events I had established that he was charming, intelligent, quick witted and funny. I liked Toby.

At an opportune moment I strode up to him and announced: ‘Toby, I just wanted to say: I like you.’ 

He was somewhat taken aback. 

‘I like you too, Jim’, he said, with a look of unease, as he turned to fetch himself another lager. 

He didn’t come back.

Later that same evening I told Natasha that I liked her too. That didn’t go down particularly well either. 

My experiment had failed. It’s really not that easy to express fondness in a frank and forthright fashion. Sincerity provokes suspicion. It comes across as dubious and strange.

I would have to return to circumlocution; to euphemism, intimation and assumption; to subtle gestures and coded compliments.

'Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?'
Leo Tolstoy, ‘Anna Karenina’

I realise now that the challenges of conveying affection also extend to the workplace. 

I’m not sure I was ever very good at telling the teams that worked for me that I was impressed; that they’d done a good job; that they’d exceeded my expectations. I was worried perhaps that it would all seem rather awkward, superfluous and empty. 

And then the moment passed.

And yet I know that if I had been better at expressing gratitude and appreciation, it would have led to more confident, motivated, loyal employees. It would have created more effective teams.

I wish I’d found the time.

Perhaps we should all commit to articulating our admiration and approval with greater frequency, alacrity and clarity. 

Though I would not now recommend the candid, unfiltered approach. Probably better to start with a little small talk - about the weather, Gogglebox, ABBA and plans for supper this evening.

'When you cycled by
Here began all my dreams,
The saddest thing I've ever seen.
And you never knew
How much I really liked you.
Because I never even told you.
Oh, and I meant to.’

The Smiths, ‘Back to the Old House’ (S Morrissey / J Marr)

No. 340

Rodin: ‘Patience is Also a Form of Action’

Auguste Rodin Main droite de Pierre et Jacques de Wissant 1885–86 Musée Rodin, S.00332

'Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump.'
Auguste Rodin

I recently attended an exhibition of the work of Auguste Rodin, considered by many to be the founder of modern sculpture. (‘The Making of Rodin’ is at Tate Modern, London until 21 November.) 

‘I began as an artisan to become an artist. That is the good, the only, method.’

On entering the gallery, we are greeted by ‘The Age of Bronze’, a nude male figure caught in a moment of crisis. The sculpture, created by Rodin in his mid-30s, is so life-like that when it was first exhibited in Brussels in 1877, some accused the artist of having made the cast directly from the model’s body. 

Rodin was aggrieved. Henceforth his work would spurn conventional classical themes and idealised beauty. Rather he would celebrate raw physicality and pure emotion: the character of the individual as revealed by his or her bodily features; the direct imprint of the artist’s hand in the act of creation.

'An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.’

The exhibition looks particularly at Rodin’s process. 

It was very much a team effort. First the artist sculpted by hand in clay. Then skilled assistants created plaster casts, and a device called a pantograph was used to scale them up. Finally carvers reproduced the works in marble, and founders cast them in bronze.

'The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.’

Auguste Rodin Study for The Thinker 1881 Musée Rodin, S.01168

We walk through a recreation of a pavilion designed by Rodin for a 1900 Paris retrospective. He specifically sought to shine a light on his practice, and so he presented plaster versions of his major sculptures alongside a multitude of preparatory models. The imposing ‘Monument to Balzac’ is surrounded by different sized busts, by a naked figure of the great novelist, and even a mock-up for his dressing gown. ‘The Thinker’ is accompanied by plaster limbs, heads, hands and feet. And there’s a simple clay study in which Rodin first explores his distinctive posture.

'What makes my ‘Thinker’ think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes.’

Rodin was clearly obsessive about preparation. He commissioned black and white photographs to capture the dynamics of the body. He used drawing to study movement. And as we progress through the rooms we encounter trays of plaster hands and feet; drawers of arms, legs and heads. He called these small body parts his ‘giblets’ (‘abattis’).

Rodin in his studio in Meudon c.1902. Photo by Eugène Druet, Musée Rodin

Rodin would often produce multiple copies of a single model so that he could explore subtly different postures and attitudes. He dismantled and reassembled existing sculptures.

One can’t help but be struck by Rodin’s fastidiousness, his attention to detail; his intense planning and preparation; his restlessly open mind.

'I invent nothing, I rediscover.'

It prompts us to consider our own working practices.

In the modern age speed is of the essence. We are always looking to compress schedules and save time; to cut to the chase and race to the finish line. But often it is the thinking time that is sacrificed.

Auguste Rodin, limbs, circa 1880–1917 | plaster and terracotta | musée rodin | photo © agence photographique du musee rodin – jerome manoukian

'Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.'

Rodin suggests that we should not regard preparation and production as tedious stages of the process to be shaved and trimmed; accelerated and streamlined. Rather we should see them as a critical part of the creative journey. When we prepare, we explore, we learn, we think, we observe. We see opportunities and possibilities where previously there was none. Preparation produces better, more distinctive work. 

If only we were employed in workshops rather than offices; studios rather than agencies. Surely we would allocate time more appropriately. As the great man said:

‘Patience is also a form of action.’

'I never met a girl
Who makes me feel the way that you do.
You're alright!
Whenever I'm asked who makes my dreams real,
I say that you do.
You're outta sight!
So, fee-fi-fo-fum,
Look out baby, 'cause here I come.
And I'm bringing you a love that's true,
So get ready, so get ready.
I'm gonna try to make you love me too,
So get ready, so get ready.
'cause here I come.’

The Temptations, ‘Get Ready’ (S Robinson)

No. 339

Paula Rego: Strategies for Subversion

Snare, 1987 by Paula Rego. Photograph: British Council Collection © Paula Rego

‘My mother used to say a change is always good, even if it's for the worse. Every change is a form of liberation.’
Paula Rego

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of Paula Rego (Tate Britain, London until 24 October).

Through her art Rego has raged against the injustices she encountered in her native Portugal. She has fought the oppression of women. She has put strong females at the centre of narratives that express powerful, raw emotions; hidden feelings and conflicting desires. She has taught us strategies for subversion.

‘The picture allows you to do all sorts of forbidden things. And that is why you do pictures.’

1. Laugh in the Face of Your Oppressor

In 1935 Rego was born into a comfortable middle-class Lisbon family. Portugal was at the time ruled by the Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship and Rego’s anti-fascist, Anglophile parents wanted their child to have a liberal education. They sent her to an English language school, then a finishing school in Sevenoaks. And she went on to attend the Slade School of Fine Art from 1952 to 1956.

The Family, 1988, Paula Rego © Paula Rego

Rego grew up hating the authoritarianism of the Estado Novo regime. 

‘People talked about football a lot and behaved themselves.’

She resented the lack of political freedom, the constraints that were placed on women, and the limited possibilities that were available to her mother, who had been a talented artist.

‘My mother was really a casualty of the society she lived in. That society was a deadly killer society for women and I despised it for that. You see, they encouraged women to do nothing, and the less they did the more they were admired for it… That is women of a certain class – the poor women had to do bloody everything.’

Through the ‘60s and ‘70s Rego poured her anger into her work, creating visceral surrealist collages representing the evil soul of President Salazar; the corruption of the Church and the elite; the crimes of colonialism. 

Rego found it liberating to laugh in the face of the oppressor.

‘The Portuguese streak of perversity often came out in humour. Jokes were difficult to control. They were a form of rebellion.’

Paula Rego

2. Put on a Brave Face

In 1959 Rego married fellow artist Victor Willing whom she had met at the Slade. The couple lived and worked between Portugal and Britain, settling eventually in Camden, London in 1972.

In the 1980s Rego abandoned collage, in favour of bright, colourful paintings that featured animal characters and revisited her childhood memories and fantasies. She found that through this work she could explore her feelings towards Willing. He had been unfaithful and, having developed multiple sclerosis, required increasing care. 

A resolute girl chains a brown dog, another shaves it with a cut-throat razor, another lifts her striped skirt towards it. A serene girl plucks a goose, another concentrates as she polishes a policeman’s jackboot, another takes a firm grip of a garrotte. There are sharp shadows. A cat climbs the wall, a stork sits atop a chair, a bird flies overhead. 

The pictures are disturbing, ambiguous, menacing and darkly sexual. 

Three female family members undress a man at the edge of a bed. Are they helping or harming him? Nothing is as it seems.

'If you put frightening things into a picture, then they can't harm you. In fact, you end becoming quite fond of them.’

At the heart of all these paintings Rego places strong, independent, rebellious girls and young women. They are smartly dressed, with neat hair and serious expressions. And they set about their business with grim determination.

3. Rewrite the Narrative

Rego had always been fascinated by nursery rhymes, fairy stories and folk myths. She took to researching them in the Reading Room of the British Museum.

‘I read Italian stories, French stories, Portuguese stories. Portuguese stories were the most cruel and the most close to me.’

For Rego these traditional tales conveyed truths: about the world’s strangeness, cruelty and corruption; about the fundamental doubts and desires that animate people.

'We interpret the world through stories... Everybody makes in their own way sense of things, but if you have stories it helps.’

Through her own pictorial narratives Rego could articulate her anxieties and fantasies. She could reconfigure the world around her particular experience and perception.

Rego also subverted familiar images from art, literature and film. She cast Snow White in a sinister light and explored the cruelty at the centre of the Pinocchio story. She took paintings by the mostly male artists in the National Gallery, freed the women of the idealised and stereotypical, and presented them as defiant, determined, driven by real and varying passions.

‘In my pictures I could do anything.’

By taking control of the narrative in this way, Rego could be fiercely political. She campaigned for abortion rights in Portugal; against female genital mutilation and the trafficking of women.

‘You can bring some justice where justice is needed.’

The Artist in Her Studio (1993), Paula Rego © Paula Rego. Leeds Art Gallery

4. ‘Go To the Origin’

For many years Rego underwent Jungian analysis to deal with her depression. Her work acted as therapy, as she sought constantly to explore how past feelings and experiences drove her current moods and behaviour. 

Sometimes, in stripping away culture and convention, she revealed our animal cravings, our primal desires.

‘To be bestial is good. It's physical. Eating, snarling, all activities to do with sensation are positive.’

Rego was always seeking the origins of things.

‘It was very important to go to the origin, the imaginative origin that provides the images of what we have inside us, without knowing what it is.’

Paula Rego, 86, is a supremely psychological artist. She shows how in the act of creation, by ‘going to the imaginative origin,’ we can better understand our fears and frailties, our doubts and desires. And she demonstrates how we can fight injustice through subversion: laughing in the face of the oppressor; putting on a brave face; and rewriting the narrative around ourselves. 

'This is the happy house - we're happy here.
In the happy house - oh it's such fun.
We've come to play in the happy house.
And waste a day in the happy house.
It never rains.
We've come to scream in the happy house.
We're in a dream in the happy house.'
We're all quite sane.’

Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Happy House' (S Sioux / S Severin)

No. 338

‘Wrong Answer, Love. Try Again’: A Lesson Learned at the Romford Dole Office

Maynard Dixon, Forgotten Man

'Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.'
Henry Ford

One summer in the early ‘80s I carefully completed the appropriate form and made my way to the Romford Dole Office. 

It was a pretty grim affair. All tatty linoleum, chipped woodwork and reinforced windows. At one end stood a row of intimidating booths protected by wire grills. Since we were in the midst of a recession, there were long lines for the counters – ranks of mostly shabbily dressed men with their heads hung low, dispirited by the bureaucratic pointlessness of it all. I joined a queue, trying to look inconspicuous. Students were not particularly popular at this time and place.

When I eventually got to the front, a rather frosty woman with thick spectacles grabbed my form without a greeting. She looked me up and down with a detached stare and read out one of the questions.

‘Are you willing to accept any work if it is offered to you?’

‘No.’ I replied honestly. 

I had had a good think about this beforehand. Though I was indeed prepared to try my hand at most jobs, I could conceive of a number of roles I’d struggle with: debt collector, football league referee, swimming instructor, children’s entertainer, for instance.

My inquisitor was not impressed.

‘Wrong answer, love. Try again.’

‘Alright then: Yes,’ I replied. 

Without a glance up in my direction, she adjusted my form, gave it a thunderous stamp and added it to a file.

‘Next!’

Many years later, when I was head of an Ad Agency Planning Department, I found myself sympathetic with my inquisitor from the Romford Dole Office.

Disgruntled colleagues would book an appointment to explain why a particular account or task did not quite fit their personal career plan; why this was a category or brand that didn’t really resonate for them; why they didn’t want to change team, or travel, or move desk.

'Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.'
Albert Einstein

The truth is that, when you’re in the midst of a resource crisis; when you’re struggling with a dissatisfied Client, a forthcoming Pitch and a shortage of talent; when your Finance Director is asking for economies and everyone is pressed for time, you really value a little energy and enthusiasm, a willingness to take on any task. And what you don’t need is people picking and choosing the roles and responsibilities that will serve them best.

‘Wrong answer, love. Try again.’

My experience at the Romford Dole Office taught me a valuable lesson: a positive disposition and an adaptable attitude can take you a long way in your career.

'They just keep on saying I'm a lazy woman.
Don't love my children and I'm mentally unfit.
Society gave us no choice,
Tried to silence my voice,
Pushing me on the welfare. 
I'm so tired of trying to prove my equal rights,
Though I've made some mistakes, for goodness sakes.
Why should they help mess up my life?
So keep away from me, Mr. Welfare
Did you hear me? Keep away from me, Mr. Welfare.’

Gladys Knight & The Pips, 'Mr. Welfare Man’ (C Mayfield)

No. 337

‘The Truth Doesn’t Rhyme’: Laurel Canyon and the Characteristics of a Creative Community

‘Laurel Canyon was a place that gave you the permission to ask who you were, to find out what this life held for you, and not be scrambling for some regimented job in a regimented society.’
Jackson Browne

I recently watched a fine film directed by Alison Ellwood documenting the music scene that thrived around Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s (‘Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time’).

Laurel Canyon was home to various members of the Byrds, the Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield; to Frank Zappa, the Mamas & the Papas, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Joni Mitchell. It gave us folk rock, country rock and a wealth of singer-songwriters. It hosted a second wave of artists: Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Little Feat and the Eagles. For the best part of a decade it was the focus of a creative community that was collaborative, countercultural, innovative and highly productive.

Let us consider the characteristics of the particular time and place that enabled this vibrant scene to flourish.

'There's something happening here,
But what it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware.
I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?’
Buffalo Springfield, ‘For What It’s Worth' (S Stills)

1. Find Somewhere Secluded, Convenient and Cheap

‘It was serene. It was beautiful. Winding, hilly. It was like living in the country, but you were in the big city.’ 
Roger McGuinn, the Byrds

Laurel Canyon is a woody neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills. Through its centre runs Laurel Canyon Boulevard, connecting the region to the more urban parts of Los Angeles to the north and south. With its dirt roads and hill-top views; traditional timber houses - large-windowed and spacious; green leafy gardens, fragrant with eucalyptus, it offered peace and tranquillity to young musicians hoping to write songs, whilst also being a short drive from big city life and performance venues. At night you could hear the sound of coyotes, owls and acoustic guitars.

‘It was so magical. Literally within 4 or 5 minutes you could be down on the Sunset Strip into Hollywood.’
David Crosby, the Byrds

Critically Laurel Canyon was affordable.

‘You didn’t move there because you were wealthy. You moved there because it was right in the middle of town. It was really cheap to live.’
Mark Volman, the Turtles

Buffalo Springfield in "Echo in the Canyon." (IMDB)

2. Locate Performance Spaces and Social Hubs

‘It was a very small community of musicians and long-haired weirdos.’
Micky Dolenz, the Monkees

The enclave began when Frank Zappa and an assortment of Byrds and Monkees settled there. Then, following the Byrds’ 1965 breakout hit, their electric cover of Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man,’ musicians from all over wanted to check out the emergent folk rock scene.

‘When I heard that music… it really inspired me to go to California to start a band.’
Richie Furay, Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield, for example, was born after Richie Furay from Ohio and Stephen Stills from Texas, ran into two Canadians, Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, driving a Pontiac hearse in the opposite direction on Sunset Boulevard. 

Soon the creative colony reached critical mass.

‘Once you got above 30 of us living up there, it was a kind of a community.’
David Crosby, the Byrds

The young musicians were a short drive from clubs like the Whisky a Go Go and the Troubadour where they could meet up, watch other bands and perform. During the day they would bump into friends at the Laurel Canyon Country Store and after a show they could adjourn to Ben Frank’s diner.

‘We were playing at the Whisky a Go Go and ended up being on a double bill with The Doors and with Love.’
Richie Furay, Buffalo Springfield

‘I was writing songs and playing open mic night at the Troubadour. That was a fun hang too because you’d wind up waiting around for about four hours with a bunch of songwriters on the street, waiting for this window to open. I made a lot of friends there.’
Jackson Browne

Residents of the area would pop into each other’s houses to hang out. There were pool parties and ping pong tournaments. Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas was ‘the Gertrude Stein of Laurel Canyon.’ When in 1968 Graham Nash arrived in LA from England without friends, he was scooped up by Cass and taken in her convertible Porsche to a party at her home. There he met David Crosby and Stephen Stills with whom he would subsequently form Crosby, Stills & Nash. 

3. Keep an Open Mind

‘I remember when I first got here driving around up in the Canyon with a good stereo. There were no sidewalks. There were no regimented lines. …No one locked their doors.’
Joni Mitchell

Part of the appeal of Laurel Canyon was that it stood apart from convention and conformity. Residents kept odd hours, grew their hair long, smoked a lot of weed and fell freely from one relationship to another. It had its own countercultural identity.

‘In the Laurel Canyon scene we were at the very centre of this beautiful bubble of creativity and friendship and sex and drugs and music.’
Graham Nash, Crosby, Stills & Nash

'I'll light the fire.
You place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today.
Staring at the fire
For hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me,
Only for me.’
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, ‘Our House’ (G Nash)

Joni Mitchell and Mama Cass - Henry Diltz

4. Get Access to Commercial Expertise

The Laurel Canyon scene did not just attract musicians. It was also a magnet for ambitious business people in search of the next big thing.

‘I was looking for a new direction. And I came out here. I would get a free magazine and I’d go through all the ads. And I came to one that said Love…I was gripped by the music. I went backstage and made them an offer. I said we’ve never done rock’n’roll. You strike me as a good place to start.’
Jac Holzman, Elektra Records

In 1971 David Geffen and Elliot Roberts founded Asylum Records and in their first year they signed Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell and Glenn Frey.

‘Elliot Roberts and I, we were coming across a lot of new artists that big record companies weren’t interested in.’
David Geffen, Co-Founder of Asylum Records

5. Offer Mutual Support and Collaboration

‘It wasn’t competitive… People were really encouraging each other: ‘Go for it. Do the best you can. Can’t wait to hear your next song.’’
Nurit Wilde, Photographer

We often think of creative people as secretive, paranoid and protective. But the community in Laurel Canyon was quite the reverse. They would trade ideas, experiences and contacts. And young artists could learn from the veterans.

‘I would sit with people [at the Troubadour] and I would ask questions… I was trying to collect as much information as possible that could help me get to where I wanted to be.’
Glenn Frey, the Eagles

The story of the Eagles illustrates this collaborative culture. They began life as Linda Ronstadt’s backing band. Their first hit single, ‘Take It Easy,’ was a song that Jackson Browne started and Glenn Frey finished. And when sales of their sophomore album, ‘Desperado’, were modest, Ronstadt kept them in the spotlight by releasing her own version of the title track.

‘It was great scene because a lot of people trying to write songs and trying to make records were very supportive of one another. Jackson Browne was a mentor to all of us because he had broken through first and we all aspired to what he was, to write like that, and have that kind of insight.’
Don Henley, the Eagles

6. Treat Every Ending as a New Beginning

Inevitably there was a good deal of volatility within this youthful creative scene. 

‘Well, we didn’t achieve anywhere near the success that we expected or wished to. It’s hard enough to live with yourself when you consider what you’ve done a failure. Living with four other guys is even harder.’
Neil Young, on leaving Buffalo Springfield

Often an ending led to a new beginning. When in 1967 Crosby was fired by the Byrds, he went on to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. When in 1968 Young walked out on Buffalo Springfield, he joined Crosby, Stills & Nash whilst also starting a solo career. When the Byrds took on Gram Parsons that same year, they were reborn as a country rock band, which in turn spawned the Flying Burrito Brothers.

'And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game.’
Joni Mitchell, 'The Circle Game'

Jackson Browne

7. Beware the Corrosive Effects of Success

‘If you hold sand too tightly in your hand, it will run through your fingers.’
Telegram sent by Joni Mitchell to Graham Nash in 1970, terminating their relationship

Laurel Canyon also teaches us about how creative communities fall apart. 

Inevitably with success came wealth and an appetite for bigger homes in more affluent neighbourhoods.

 ‘John [Phillips] and I left Laurel Canyon and moved to Bel Air, three Rolls Royces in the garage. We were hippies, but we were rich hippies, there was no question about that. We’d been so innovative, but we had become the establishment.’
Michelle Phillips, the Mamas & the Papas

Prosperity and fame also led to fragmentation and eroded the culture of collaboration that had been so fruitful. 

‘Being successful we’ve all developed our own ways of life here in LA. And we don’t effect one another as creatively as we did when we all depended on one another.’
Cass Elliot, the Mamas & the Papas

‘As people became very, very successful the camaraderie changed. People started guarding their songs. You didn’t want to give up one of your melodies to somebody else.’
Elliot Roberts, Manager and Co-Founder of Asylum Records

In 1969 the Manson murders and the violence at the Altamont Free Concert shone a spotlight on the dark byways of the hippie scene. Doors were locked and guns were bought. Weed was replaced by cocaine. There was the sense of an ending.

Of course, there’s a tendency to mythologise history; to reflect on the past with rose tinted spectacles. Some of the witness testimonies about Laurel Canyon don’t exactly tally. 

‘A writer can move time around. You can take incidents that happened over the span of 15 years and make them occur in the same moment. Maybe the truth doesn’t rhyme.’
Joni Mitchell

Nonetheless, between the mid ‘60s and the early ‘70s the music community in Laurel Canyon produced some quite stunning music and set the direction of American rock for years to come. It teaches a great deal about the importance of place and of culture; about collaboration and the cross-pollination of ideas. These lessons may be all the more relevant as we reflect on the future of agencies, offices and departments in the wake of the pandemic; as we look to create our own creative cultures and communities.

‘Places become a focal point for breaking out of convention. What was happening in Laurel Canyon was the universe cracking open and revealing its secrets. It was just about a time, a creative awakening.’
Jackson Browne

'Well I've been out walking.
I don't do that much talking these days.
These days.
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you,
And all the times I had the chance to.’
Jackson Browne, ‘These Days'

No. 336

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Breaking Down the Walls

‘Sophie Taeuber with her Dada head’, 1920, by Nicolai Aluf (Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin)

I recently attended a fine exhibition of the work of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (Tate Modern, London until October 2021).

Taeuber-Arp applied her creativity across a range of media: from cushions, bags and necklaces; to stained glass, furniture, rugs and tapestries. She painted and danced; taught and edited; designed costumes, stage-sets and marionettes. She defied all categorisation, denied every traditional hierarchy. She broke down walls.

Sophie Taeuber was born in Davos in 1889. Her father, a pharmacist, died of tuberculosis when she was still a child. Having studied drawing in Switzerland, she moved to Germany to take classes in design, woodwork, weaving and beadwork. From the outset she was interested in developing a diverse set of skills.

‘For some weeks I’ve been really torn, as I still don’t know which kind of workshop I should join. I think textile design suits me, and it’s relatively easy to find something to do with it, too.’

At the outbreak of the First World War Taeuber returned to Zurich where she studied modern dance with the choreographer Rudolf von Laban, taught textile design at the School of Arts and Crafts, and embarked on a career in the applied arts.

Taeuber’s work was rooted in simple colour-block patterns that she created as watercolours, exploring the infinite possibilities of shape, shade and juxtaposition. Sometimes she introduced suggestions of figures that danced joyously off the page. She applied these designs to patterned purses, beaded necklaces and embroidered pillowcases; to fashion, furnishings and furniture.

‘I ended up doing a whole series of little watercolours, which I can easily rework for beaded bags, cushions, rugs and wall fabrics.’

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Purse / Perlbeutel, 1917-1918. Silk, glass beads, knitted. Switzerland. Via Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Many artists fled to neutral Switzerland to escape the War, and Taeuber became active in the Dada movement that flourished in Zurich as a result. This group of painters, poets and performers rejected the logic, reason, and conventions that had led to the conflict. Instead they embraced nonsense, irrationality and the absurd. 

Taeuber designed costumes, sets and puppets for Dada performances. She danced in avant-garde shows at the Cabaret Voltaire - in masks and under false names, so as not to upset her bosses at the School of Arts and Crafts. 

Taeuber particularly enjoyed collaborating with French artist Hans Arp and they became partners. After the War the couple travelled extensively and worked on architecture and interior design projects for cafes, hotels and private homes. They married in 1922, took on French citizenship and settled near Paris.

In the 1930s Taeuber-Arp joined various Paris-based artist groups, she founded a journal and continued to teach. In her work she persisted in exploring the relationship between line, form and colour, in pictures and wooden reliefs. Her geometric abstractions were cool, considered and playful. Bright hued curves, cones and contours skipped across the canvas. Sharp triangles, sinuous lines and jaunty circles jostled for attention.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp ‘Angela' (marionette for King Stag) 1918 Museun für Gestaltung, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Zurich. Decorative Arts Collection

In 1940, when German troops invaded Paris, Taeuber-Arp and her husband fled to southern France and in 1942 they returned to Zurich. 

And then one night in January 1943, Taeuber-Arp missed the last tram home and slept in a snow-covered summer-house. She was found the next day, dead from the carbon monoxide that had issued from a faulty stove. She was 53.

Despite her tragic end, Taeuber-Arp left an enduring impression of joyfulness and love of life. Her work was vibrant, colourful, inspiring. And in photos she always seemed to be smiling, laughing, exuberant. In a 1937 letter to her goddaughter she wrote:

'I think I have spoken enough to you about serious things; which is why I speak [now] of something to which I attribute great value, still too little appreciated — gaiety. It is gaiety, basically, that allows us to have no fear before the problems of life and to find a natural solution to them.’

Animated Circles 1934 by Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1934)

We could all learn a great deal from Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Within the creative industries you’ll still find segmented disciplines; hierarchical attitudes towards different platforms and between creativity and craft. Taeuber-Arp encourages us to work freely, without restraint, across categories; to break down those walls; to distill our delight with the world and share it.

'The intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated. It is one of humankind's deep-rooted, primordial urges. Primitive people decorated their implements and cult objects with a desire to beautify and enhance.’

'Breakin' down the walls of heartache, baby.
I'm a carpenter of love and affection.
Breaking down the walls of heartache, baby.
I got to tear down all the loneliness and tears
And build you up a house of love.’

The Bandwagon, 'Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache’ (D Randell / S Linzer)

No. 335

The Benign Bluff: ‘Make It Totally Vitriolic!’

Apollo 11 liftoff. Credit: NASA

'Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.'
Jack London

Chris was a charming and hugely talented editor who was a master at producing emotive films to support our presentations. I popped in to brief him on his next assignment. 

One of our Clients had commissioned us to supply a short edit that would feature at the climax of a forthcoming sales conference. It needed to be grandiose and magnificent - something that suggested achievement, progress, dynamism. It should perhaps include Apollo rockets blasting into the sky and joyous communal dancing; Rocky atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and that scene from Witness where they build a house together. 

Chris nodded.

‘And you say this is for a mid-market shoe brand?’ 

I chose to ignore the sarcasm and pressed on.

‘Oh, and the Client has requested that the piece be sound-tracked to Tina Turner ‘Simply the Best.’’

Chris winced. This was not going to be his most creative challenge. But after a pause for reflection, he gave a weary sigh.

‘It’s OK. I’ve got it. Lots of fireworks, ticker tape and uplifting moments that’ll have them punching the air in the conference hall. I’ll make it totally vitriolic.’

I hesitated for a moment. Chris had clearly got the brief. But what did he mean by totally vitriolic? 

I determined that it was best not to disrupt the positive momentum.

‘Great. Exactly. Make it totally vitriolic. Let’s crack on.’

Over the next week I occasionally popped by to see how Chris was getting on. All was going well. He’d integrated futuristic wizardry from The Matrix; dramatic leaps from Crouching Tiger; and he’d concluded the edit with Jack and Rose on the bow of the Titanic. Perfect. It was totally vitriolic.

'You're simply the best,
Better than all the rest.
Better than anyone,
Anyone I've ever met.’
Tina Turner, 'Simply the Best’ (H Knight / M Chapman)

Our shoe Client’s sales conference was a great success and Chris’ inspirational video added a triumphant closing note to proceedings. My benign bluff had served its purpose.

'It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.'
Mark Twain

I read recently in The Times (20 May, ‘Bluffing is a sign of being clever') about research into bluffing carried out at the University of Waterloo in Canada and published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.

‘People like stories. Even if you’re at the top of your field, being a pretty good bullshitter gives you just that little bit extra edge.'
Martin Turpin, PhD researcher, University of Waterloo

200 students were given a list of concepts and asked to define them even if they were not confident they knew their precise meaning. Six of the concepts were real, including ‘general relativity’ and ‘sexual selection theory’. Four, such as ‘neural acceptance’ and ‘subjunctive scaling’, were not genuine. Another group of students were then shown the answers and asked to judge how convincing they were. 

The research found that those who were best at bluffing also scored best in intelligence tests. And it concluded that bluffing should be rehabilitated as an art form: it is an evolved skill that helps people navigate social environments.

'People have this assumption around people who bullshit, that they are mostly people who are dull or talentless, and they use linguistic trickery to get an edge up where they don’t actually have any substance…[But] bullshitting is quite fundamentally human, and might actually demonstrate intelligence in a very human way...If you are good at bullshitting, then across the majority of human enterprise there will be room for somebody like you — someone who can tell a good story.’
Martin Turpin, PhD researcher, University of Waterloo

I would always urge people to tell the truth. It’s more important now than ever. But we should recognise that we’re in the business of persuasion; of advocacy and storytelling. And occasionally it is entirely appropriate to go with the flow; to pretend, affect and simulate; to bluff one’s way out of a tight spot.

'Since he was much weaker than his enemy, he could afford to display no weakness at all.'
Michael Dobbs

A month or so after the sales conference, I received a call from Chris.

‘You bastard.  I’ve been saying vitriolic left, right and centre. And someone’s just corrected me. That’s not what vitriolic means at all!’

'If you search for tenderness,
It isn't hard to find.
You can have the love you need to live.
But if you look for truthfulness,
You might just as well be blind.
It always seems to be so hard to give.
Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you.’
Billy Joel, ‘Honesty'

No. 334

‘I Am My Own Fantasy’: Marc Bolan and the Creative Ego

Roger Bamber/Shutterstock

'Well, you can bump and grind, it is good for your mind.
Well, you can twist and shout, let it all hang out.
But you won't fool the children of the revolution.
No, you won't fool the children of the revolution.’

‘Children of the Revolution’

I recently watched ‘Cosmic Dancer,’ a splendid BBC documentary about the musician Marc Bolan.

In his brief life Bolan brought colour, style and romance to drab early ‘70s Britain. He set the charts ablaze and hearts aflutter with his swaggering guitar pop. He inspired a generation of teenagers, challenged stereotypes of masculinity and invented Glam Rock.

‘I guess my name will live longer than any record. I am the ‘Cosmic Dancer’ who dances his way out of the womb… I am a lifestyle. I am my own fantasy.’

Bolan created his own world of gurus, warlocks and wizards; of gypsy dancers and ‘silver-studded sabre-tooth dreams.’ With a sway of his slim hips and a wave of his elegant hands, this latter day troubadour looked his audience straight in the eye and serenaded them. He was ‘your boy, your 20th century toy.’ He was ‘just a Jeepster for your love.’ And he ‘loved to boogie on a Saturday night.’

‘I’ve always known I was different right from the start, right from the moment I was born. When I was younger I certainly thought I was a superior sort of being. I was very much into my own little world in those days.’

Marc Bolan was born Mark Feld in Hackney, East London, in 1947. His father was a lorry driver and his mother worked on a fruit stall in Berwick Street Market. As a child he fell in love with Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent. But most of all he fell in love with himself - as he preened, pouted and posed in front of his bedroom mirror.

‘As a little kid I was always into music… I used to just look in the mirror and wiggle about. I was completely knocked out by my own image, by the idea of Mark Feld and what he would become.’

Aged 9 Bolan was given his first guitar and he formed a skiffle band at school. Later he embraced the dandy discipline of Mod and featured in a Don McCullin shoot about the youth movement for Town magazine.

Peter Sugar, Michael Simmonds and Mark Feld in Town magazine, September 1962.

‘For me clothes were wisdom and knowledge… In those days I created a world where I was king of my own neighbourhood. I was always a star, even if it was only a star of three streets in Hackney.’

Bolan briefly took up modelling. But then he read a book of Rimbaud’s poetry and ‘felt like my feet were on fire.’ He began writing his own verse.

‘I dreamed of voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of. I boasted of inventing with rhythms from within me a kind of poetry that all the senses would recognise, and I alone would be its translator.’

Soon Bolan was trying his hand as a musician, styling his early efforts on Bob Dylan.

‘I thought, if he can sing like that and play guitar that bad, I can do it.’

In 1965 this Bohemian minstrel signed to Decca Records and changed his name to Marc Bolan. Fame didn’t fall easily into his lap by any means. He made a modest impression with Mod band John's Children. And then, inspired by Ravi Shankar, he took to playing acoustic guitar while sitting cross-legged. The psychedelic folk rock duo that he formed on the back of this, Tyrannosaurus Rex, was critically acclaimed and enthusiastically promoted by DJ John Peel. But again it was only moderately successful in sales terms.

T. Rex: The Slider (1972)

‘I wish I could get away to another place where mountains rise unspoilt to the sky and you could ride horses as far as the eye could see.’

At length, thirsty for stardom, Bolan bought a Gibson Les Paul guitar, teamed up with producer Tony Visconti and recorded his first hit. Released in October 1970, ‘Ride a White Swan’ combined Bolan’s mystical lyrics with a brighter pop sound, a fresh, modern re-articulation of ‘50s rock’n’roll. 

'Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days.
Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown.
Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane.
Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong.’ 

'Ride a White Swan’

Bolan expanded the group, shortened its name to T Rex and everything fell into place. The hits came in quick succession throughout 1971 and 1972. ‘Get It On’, ‘Hot Love’, ‘Jeepster’,’Telegram Sam’,’Metal Guru’,’Children of the Revolution’, ‘Solid Gold Easy Action.’ 

Bolan had created a production line of exuberant electric boogie, and T Rex became a huge pop sensation, mobbed by teenage girls wherever they went.

‘I like being loved. Isn’t it nice that someone can love you enough to put your picture on their bedroom wall? The frightening thing is the sheer strength of it all.’

Bolan was well aware that his popularity was as much based on his image as his music.

‘95% of my success is the way I look. Look and presence is what people pick up on. People are really works of art and if you have a nice face you may as well play about with it.’

Bolan’s long lustrous curls tumbled over his delicate shoulders. His purple open-neck shirt revealed a gold pendant on a hairless chest. He shimmied across the stage in flared trousers and stacked heels, scarves on his wrists and a sailor’s hat on his head. He wore leopard, tiger and zebra skin prints; sequins, silk and satin; feather boas, floral shirts and figure-hugging tank tops. He finished off his look with a little glitter on each cheek. 

'You're so sweet.
You're so fine.
I want you all and everything,
Just to be mine.
'Cos you're my baby.
'Cos you're my love.
Girl I'm just a Jeepster
For you love.’

‘Jeepster'

Of course pop stardom is fleeting. By late 1973 Bolan’s fickle young audience were turning their attention to other heart-throbs - to the Osmonds and David Cassidy.

‘I’ve never felt so insecure as I do about my music, because I’m so exposed. What I’m playing and singing is a projection of my real self.’

Though Bolan had a few more hits, the original T Rex line-up disintegrated and his marriage broke up. He turned to drink and drugs and put on weight. His career limped on with further albums and tours, and his own teatime TV show. But the glory days were over.

In September 1977, Bolan was being driven home through Barnes by his backing singer and partner Gloria Jones. The yellow Mini struck a fence post and then a tree. Bolan was killed instantly. It was two weeks before his 30th birthday. 

‘Personally the prospect of immortality does not excite me, but the prospect of being a materialistic idol for four years does.’

Bolan’s time at the top was brief and brilliant. He came to represent an age of innocence, an era of youthful optimism, a period when pop really mattered.

Some took Bolan less seriously because he courted teen magazines and photo shoots; because his looks were flamboyant and his lyrics were daft. But such criticism failed to understand the thrilling effervescence and precious transience of pop music. And Bolan left a legacy. In creating Glam Rock he cleared a path for Bowie, Roxy and Punk.

'It’s easy to underestimate him because he overestimated himself.'
Keith Altham, Publicist

Viewed from a distance, one can’t help being struck by Bolan’s extraordinary narcissism and arrogance. This was a man whose self-belief knew no bounds and who often spoke with a comic hauteur.

'If God were to appear in my room, obviously I would be in awe, but I don't think I would be humble. I might cry, but I think he would dig me like crazy.’

In my time I have known quite a few conceited creative people. I have become convinced that original thinkers need a certain amount of ego to sustain them; that you can’t break conventions without a little self-importance; that invention often comes with pretention. Of course nothing excuses rudeness or poor treatment of others. But there is a price to pay for difference. And it’s a price worth paying if there’s real talent to back it up.

‘I do lie a lot, you know. I feel my credibility as a poet allows me to make things up.’

A few years ago Brian was driving Gwyn and me to a meeting in West London. As we passed Barnes Common, Brian pointed out the spot where Bolan met his end. The car radio had been playing quietly in the background. Suddenly and magically ‘20th Century Boy’ started blaring from the speakers. Bolan had lost none of his dramatic flair. 

'My friends say it's fine, friends say it's good.
Everybody says, it's just like a rock 'n' roll should.
I move like a cat, charge like a ram.
Sting like a bee, babe, I wanna be your man.
Well, it's plain to see you were meant for me
I'm your boy, your 20th century toy.’

T Rex, ‘20th Century Boy’ (M Bolan)

No. 333