‘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

Aubrey Beardsley: A Race Against Time

Aubrey Beardsley The Climax 1893 (published 1907)

‘Last summer I struck for myself an entirely new method of drawing and composition… The subjects were quite mad and a little indecent. Strange hermaphroditic creatures wandering about in Pierrot costumes or modern dress; quite a new world of my own creation.’ 
Aubrey Beardsley, letter to an old school friend, 1893

Like its subject, the recent exhibition of the work of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley at the Tate Britain was cut short. However, you can still buy the splendid accompanying catalogue, and there was a fine documentary on BBC4 (‘Scandal and Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley’).

Working almost exclusively in pen and ink, Beardsley created a magical world of biblical and mythical figures; of chivalrous knights and damsels in distress; of fauns and satyrs, Pierrots and Harlequins. It was a world inhabited by masked women with cruel smiles and demonic stares; by fat ladies and femmes fatales; by cheeky cherubs and angry foetuses. There were flamboyant dresses, flowing locks and fashionable hats; malevolent serpents, exotic flowers and phallic candles. It was a world of fantasy and nightmare, both sinister and sensual. 

Beardsley helped define his times - an age of romance, style and decadence.

Beardsley was born into an impoverished middle class family in Brighton in 1872. When he was 7 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, or consumption as it was then commonly called. There was no known cure and he was condemned to a short life of coughing, weight loss and periodic haemorrhages.

The Black Cape, 1893, ink on paper. The British Museum

Too frail for sport, Beardsley immersed himself in art and literature, and his first poems and drawings appeared in his school magazine. He left education at 16 and took a job as a clerk at Guardian Life Assurance in London. 

When he was 18 Beardsley met the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, an artist he greatly admired. Beardsley had a portfolio of his sketches with him, and Burne-Jones was impressed.

‘Nature has given you every gift which is necessary to become a great artist. I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession, but in your case I can do nothing else.’ 

Beardsley’s early work was clearly inspired by Burne-Jones’ Pre-Raphaelite style. But he was also influenced by the Japanese woodblock prints that were popular all over Europe at the time: delicately drawn figures set against abstract backgrounds; fine lines and intricate details contrasted with flat blocks of negative space.

On Burne-Jones' recommendation, Beardsley attended classes at Westminster School of Art. And in 1892 he received his first commission: to illustrate Malory’s ‘Le Morte Darthur.’ This required him to produce some 350 drawings when he got home from work in the evening. It was a massive undertaking. Despite the medieval subject matter, he introduced mermaids, satyrs and Pan figures to his work. He was naturally subversive.

The £250 Beardsley received for ‘Le Morte Darthur’ enabled him to leave his job. Ever aware of the illness hanging over him, he was a man in a hurry. In 1893 he supplied illustrations for the first issue of the new art magazine, The Studio, and he was himself the subject of the leading article.

‘The drawings here printed show decisively the presence among us of an artist, of an artist whose work is quite as remarkable in its execution as in its invention: a very rare combination.' 

Next Beardsley caught the eye of the great dramatist Oscar Wilde. He was commissioned to illustrate the English translation of Wilde’s play ‘Salome’.  Again Beardsley delighted in hiding provocative images in his illustrations. This time he even included teasing satirical caricatures of Wilde himself. His publisher had to be alert to Beardsley’s mischief.

‘One had, so to speak, to place his drawings under a microscope, and look at them upside down.’   

The Yellow Book Vol I, 1894

In 1894 Beardsley was appointed art editor of a new magazine, The Yellow Book. Yellow was a fashionable and somewhat risqué colour since it suggested the yellow covers of erotic French novels. In a radical move, text and image were independent of each other. The first edition of The Yellow Book was an instant and controversial success, and an elated Beardsley wrote to Henry James:

‘Have you heard of the storm that raged over No. 1? Most of the thunderbolts fell on my head. However I enjoyed the excitement immensely.’

Beardsley was now famous and fashionable. And he revelled in his transgressive reputation. 

'Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.’

Beardsley cut a dash on the London literary scene. He was long limbed and thin boned, with an aquiline nose and a bold centre parting. And he dressed like a dandy, in dove-grey suits, with bow tie, hat, gloves and cane. 

Ever the modern man, Beardsley was alert to new outlets for his work. On a visit to Paris he was impressed at the creative use made of commercial posters, and back in London he became an enthusiastic exponent of the medium. In an essay in The New Review he wrote:

'Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash…The poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries?... London will soon be resplendent with advertisements… Beauty has laid siege to the city.'

But everything was about to change.

In 1895, Wilde was prosecuted for ‘gross indecency.’ At his arrest he was seen carrying a yellow book, and the public assumed it was a copy of the infamous magazine.  (In fact it was a French novel.) A mob pelted the windows of Beardsley’s publishing house and his spooked employer sacked the young artist.

Beardsley sold his home and retreated to Dieppe. There he embarked on a new magazine, The Savoy, for Leonard Smithers, an entrepreneur who published ‘what all the others are afraid to touch.’ Beardsley proposed that the cover of the first issue should feature a putto urinating on The Yellow Book. This was too much even for Smithers. Beardsley was now so notorious that some booksellers, including WH Smith, refused to display his work in their windows. After only eight issues, and within a year of its launch, The Savoy folded. 

Portrait of Beardsley by Frederick Evans

Beardsley’s health was failing fast, and yet he pressed on. While recuperating in Epsom in 1896, he created a set of designs for Aristophanes’ ‘Lysistrata’: a comedy about a sex strike by women frustrated with their warring husbands. Inspired by the huge phalluses he had seen on Ancient Greek vases, these were his most provocative images yet.

Later that same year Beardsley suffered a severe haemorrhage of the lung. He moved to the French Riviera in search of healthier air, and it was here that he died, in Menton in 1898. He was 25 years old.

Beardsley’s artistic career barely spanned seven years. Conscious of his illness, he was in a race to make the most of his life - an urgent, precipitous sprint to experience the world, to express himself, to make an impression. It was a race against time.

Beardsley teaches us to treat time as a precious commodity; to make every hour of every day count. He urges us to be ambitious for our talents despite the cards life has dealt us; to be vigorous in our quest for achievement, honest in our self-expression, unafraid of transgression or censure. He courted scandal because it accelerated his progress and because he didn’t have time for courtesies. Sometimes it’s best just not to care what other people think.

Beardsley’s friend the poet Arthur Symons summed him up thus:

‘He had the fatal speed of those who are to die young; that disquieting completeness and extent of knowledge, that absorption of a lifetime in an hour, which we find in those who hasten to have done their work before, knowing that they will not see the evening.’

''Cause we were never being boring.
We had too much time to find for ourselves,
and we were never being boring.
We dressed up and fought, then thought "make amends."
And we were never holding back or worried that
time would come to an end.
We were always hoping that, looking back
you could always rely on a friend.’

The Pet Shop Boys, ‘Being Boring’ (Lowe C, Tennant N)

No. 280

When Revolutionaries Become Reactionaries: Alfred Munnings and the Disenchantments of Age

‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ - Alfred Munnings

‘The most radical revolutionary will become conservative the day after the revolution.’
Hannah Arendt, Philosopher and Political Theorist

I confess I’m partial to the art of Alfred Munnings. 

In the first half of the twentieth century Munnings painted East Anglian life in bold, bright colours: race meetings, horse fairs and hunting; farm hands, gentry and gypsies. Mostly he just painted horses, for whom he seemed to have a greater affection than he had for people. He titled one painting ‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ and the horse takes centre stage.

To modern eyes Munnings’ paintings are not particularly challenging or thought provoking. But in his youth he was part of the progressive art colony based on the south coast of Cornwall, the Newlyn School, and he served as a war artist during the First World War. His work is honest, open and true. It is rooted in the English countryside and English painting tradition. It is in its own way rather beautiful.

‘Every hero becomes a bore at last.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist

Sadly Munnings’ reputation in the art world is tarnished. As he grew older he developed a passionate dislike of modernism. In his late sixties he served as President of the Royal Academy of Art and, in a speech broadcast live on the BBC in 1949, he drunkenly accused his fellow painters of ‘shilly shallying in this so called modern art.’ He suggested that Cezanne, Matisse and Henry Moore had corrupted art, and he joked that he’d like to join Churchill in kicking Picasso up the arse.

’The Start at Newmarket’ - Alfred Munnings

‘A great scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.’
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Physicist

I was prompted to think about Munnings by a piece I read in The Times (Rhys Blakely, 17 September 2019). A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked the careers of 13,000 elite scientists, looking at their funding, published papers and citations. The research suggests that ‘superstar scientists,’ once they have achieved a position of authority, tend to suppress new ideas from other quarters. After their deaths their field of study is often invigorated by younger rivals, who suddenly publish research at a faster rate, and by scientists migrating from other adjacent subject areas. 

‘Our results suggest that, once in control of the commanding heights of their fields, star scientists tend to hold on to their exalted position – and to the power that comes with it – a bit too long.’ 
Pierre Azoulay, MIT

This conclusion may resonate with people working in business today. The senior ranks of industry are quite often filled with individuals who in their youthful prime were high-achieving radicals. However, with the passing of the years and the accrual of status, recognition and rewards, these same people can become increasingly conservative, set on defending their turf from new people and new ideas. They can’t help regarding the world through the prism of their own talents and beliefs. In time most revolutionaries become reactionaries.

’Morning Ride’ - Alfred Munnings

Speaking from experience, as you get older you can feel marginalised. The world seems to be reinventing itself around the needs and tastes of new generations. It’s easy to resent change. And conservatism creeps over you like a comfortable blanket. We all occasionally suffer Luddite leanings.

‘All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer

I’m not sure it’s wise to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’  At least not in the reactionary way that Munnings did. We may not want to run at the future, but we certainly shouldn’t run away from it. The grumpy old man or woman is rarely attractive, seldom makes for an effective leader, and should probably avoid the sauce when speaking in public.

'Old man, take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you.
I need someone to love me
The whole day through.
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true.’

Neil Young, ‘Old Man'

No. 259

The Uncertain Leader: Crystal Pite and the ‘Doldrums of Doubt’

Isabella Gasparini, Solomon Golding, Joseph Sissons, Kristen McNally and Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød in Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern. © Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House

Crystal Pite creates dance for the modern world. She has choreographed touching and thought provoking pieces that respond to personal trauma, grief and addiction; to the science of swarm intelligence; to the tragedy of the refugee crisis. She deals in organic structures and fluid shapes; complex patterns and restless waves. She explores the forces, conflicts and tensions at play in our bodies, our relationships and the world beyond.

‘It’s just human beings striving and yearning and reaching and trying. That is what moves me when I watch people dance.’

In person Pite seems a quiet presence, gentle and softly spoken. She is very articulate, but also cautious and considered.

‘I don’t feel that speaking is my first language. Dance is my first language.’

In a recent BBC documentary (Behind the Scenes, Radio 4, 25 July 2017) Pite is interviewed in the midst of rehearsals for ‘Flight Pattern,’ her first collaboration with the Royal Ballet. She openly expresses her anxieties about the piece.

‘I can feel that I’m overwhelmed by this project right now. It’s ambitious and there’s very little time, and I’m not convinced about some of the choices that I’ve made, and I don’t know if things are going to work. And if they don’t work, I don’t think I’m going to have time to come up with a Plan B.’

Pite reassures herself that persistence, effort, action and creation will see her through what she calls ‘the doldrums of doubt.’

Crystal Pite portrait courtesy of Sadlers Wells

‘Keep pushing through, just keep making. Keep making, keep imagining, keep building, keep trying. Otherwise I’ll just freeze.’

Pite’s candour about her misgivings is rare and compelling in someone so successful. And yet her uncertainty comes in harness with a steely determination, and a clear conviction about her core idea and end objective.

‘I have such a clear plan for the eye of the audience…Not only do I choreograph what’s on stage. I also choreograph the viewer. I choreograph what I think they’re going to be looking at.’

Pite is the very model of a modern creative leader. She has complete confidence about where she wants to go. But she is also open about the doubts and uncertainties, opportunities and threats that present themselves along the way.

‘I have to be a leader and I have to be a creator. Being a leader requires that I know what I’m doing. I need to walk in here, into the studio, and know; and to be able to be clear and decisive and sure. And being a creator is really the opposite of that. I need to be in a state of not knowing. I need to remain open to possibilities and to allow myself to meander and to play.’

It struck me that Pite’s remarks do not pertain just to creative leadership; but to all forms of leadership in an age of change. In the past we wanted our leaders to be consistently certain, steadfast and strong. But in times of transformation complete conviction about the future can come across as arrogant, misguided or delusional. When all around us is in flux, absolute certainty is absolutely impossible.

Of course, we need our leaders to be sure about the objectives we’re pursuing; the direction we’re headed. But we also need them to be more honest about their doubts and fears; more open to alternatives and opportunities; more responsive to events and circumstances.

‘Flight Pattern’ turned out to be an exceptional piece of modern dance. It was at once beautiful and sad; heartbreaking and inspiring. Its success must in part derive from its choreographer’s willingness to embrace her apprehensions and anxieties. Uncertain times call for uncertain leaders.

No. 143