Smith 1 Casey Smith English 200 Ms.

Olding 3 March 2014 Analyzing the Gong Song: Bang a Gong (Get It On) Artist: T. Rex Description: T.rex is a band headlined by Marc Bolan. Marc Bolan was born Mark Feld on September 30, 1947 in London, England. T. Rex was formed in 1967 and quickly became widely known as one of the greatest glam rock bands of all time (Wiki). Glam rock was born and flourished in the UK and was also recognized worldwide. One major reason for this growth in such an odd form of music was Marc Bolan and T.Rex. Many of his songs reached the top twenty in the UK causing him to become a global musical force. T.Rexs song Bang a Gong (Get It On) is just one of the bands many massive hits and it symbolizes a lot of what Glam Rock is all about. Lyrics: Most aspects found in the Glam Rock genre are found in this song. Glam Rock focuses on three common themes; exploration of self, sex, and drugs. This song mostly focuses on the first two without touching much on the exploration of drugs although in the heat of his career, Bolan was commonly known to be high. This song mostly focuses on the sex aspect of Glam Rocks themes. The song opens with Well you're dirty and sweet, clad in black(Bolan, Bang a Gong) and everything about this opening line screams sex. Being a Rock sensation in the UK, Bolan saw plenty of what is stated in the

Smith 2 opening of this song. The end of the section sings You're dirty sweet and you're my girl. These Lyrics sum up all of the raunchy sex oriented subject matter he brings up in the opening segment. Bolan then moves into his chorus which is short simple and to the point Get it on, bang the gong, get it on(x2). Get it on is pretty self-explanatory. I think Bolan is obviously referring that he has succeeded in his sexual intentions spelled out in the first segment. Bang The Gong stands for another goal accomplished, as if Bolan has signaled another prize won. This simple chorus easily depicts the exploration of sex occurring in the 70s and must have been easily related to during those times. Bolan repeats this lyric segment twice, which simply exaggerates his emphasis on the sexual orientation of this song. Even though through most of this song Bolan focuses on sexual exploration, most of the second verse focuses on the exploration of self. Bolans automobile fascination came into full context when T. Rex was created. Cars were prevalent in almost all of the bands hit songs, and this one is no different. In the second verse Bolan opens up with You're built like a car, you've got a hub cap diamond star halo. There isnt much to say about this verse besides that it has a lot to do with relating cars to women. How much better can it get, right? Bolan brings this aspect of cars into the rest of this verse as well. He follows up the first part of the second verse with You're built like a car, oh yeah; You're an untamed youth that's the truth with your cloak full of eagles; You're dirty sweet and you're my girl. Though the beginning of this verse sticks with the car theme, which focuses on self, the end of this lyric interestingly and creatively swings back up to connect to the chorus about achieving his goal of getting the girl. The end of this verse then flows wonderfully back into the chorus. After a repeat of the chorus Bolan comes back on the third verse with a filler esque lyrical combining light sexual references with a much more laid back attitude. He starts off singing Youre windy and wild which is about as sexual as this verse gets and then repeats the end of the second verse

Smith 3 bringing back up his fascination with cars. As with most songs in any genre repetition is rampant and is mostly there just to solidify a point. In this case, Bolan is again continuing his comparison of how much he enjoys cars with how much he also loves women. After yet another repeat of the chorus Bolan gets into his final verse which is back to being fully focused on sexual exploration. Bolan starts with the same part of the first verse, but adds a different ending to the verse. Bolan finishes this verse with You dance when you walk so let's dance, take a chance, understand me dancing in this verse is referencing sexual activities, while the understand me aspect is leaving to the imagination of what their might be to understand about the mysteries of Mr. Bolan. After a repeat of the final line in the first verse, Bolan finishes out the song lyrically with the final iteration of the chorus. Vocals: Marc Bolan started in a Band named Tyrannosaurus Rex. In his earlier days Bolan was trying to reach an audience that mostly consisted of drugged hippies. That audience didnt gain Bolan enough fame so he soon switched over to a more main stream audience, and with that switch Bolan also switched how he vocalized his music. Prior to T.Rex, Bolans voice and vocals were slurred and mumbled almost to the point of being inaudible. Once Bolan re-imaged himself for a bigger audience, he cleared up his voice and vocals to make them more defined and audible (King of the Highway, 85). Since this song came out while Bolan was a part of T.Rex, it is one of his clearly worded songs. The words are defined and easily recognized from verse to verse. Bolan does tend to start this song in a kind of whisper in order to hold true to the sexual tendencies of the song. As he comes into the chorus he changes up and picks up the pace and even harmonizes the vocals in the chorus. In the second verse Bolan isnt quite at a whisper anymore; hes a little louder. This is to reinforce that he is now more interested in the girl he talks about during the song. In the next iteration of the chorus the vocalization is

Smith 4 very similar to the first time. In the next verse he once again picks up the volume of his vocals just slightly. Throughout the song, Bolan gets more and more enthused about his vocals and his words become more and more defined. This goes along with the message of the song about being increasingly interested in a girl. At the end of the song Bolan repeats the chorus multiple times adding in certain harmonics and such just to make the song seem more complex and to reduce the repetition. Instrumentation: Instrumentation, much like vocals, went through a drastic change part way through Bolans career. Bolans original works under Tyrannosaurs Rex were very mellow and calm. Since this only appealed to the subtle and fading hippie movement, Bolan decided he would change to a more electric version of music. This disrupted the current thought process for one of Bolans key band members and caused Bolan to move on and form the band T.Rex. Once this new band was formed Bowie went on to become the sensation he is known to be today, and without the switch to a more electric form of music this is unlikely to have ever happened (King of the Highway 82). In Bang a Gong, listeners get a prime example of what Glam rock should sound like. Bolan brought many commonly found instruments into this piece but also kept some of his older sound as well. The electric guitar is very prevalent in this song, and that is due to the evolution from his hippie acoustic days to his Glam Rock electric days. An interesting and exclusive part of this song is the use of a saxophone. The way the sax is played in this song definitely enhances the sexual aspect of the song and heightens the awareness during the songs strong instrumental points. Overall this song is an instrumental powerhouse that pulls influences from all over the place to combine them into one epic piece of Glam Rock history.

Smith 5 Works Cited Auslander, Philip. Performing Glam Rock. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006. 71105. Print. "Marc Bolan." Early life and career,Tyrannosaurus Rex,T. Rex and glam rock. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Bolan>.