(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 31 December 2025 8:57, UK
Looking back, it is hard to distinguish between the reality and the hype that surrounds The Beatles. They are most often referred to as one of the most influential bands of all time, being a seed from which most modern music has grown. But, for a section of the music-loving world, they are just another band with an extraordinary amount of hype.
Nostalgia is a funny thing, and it has a habit of making some of the most mundane things feel exquisite. Look back at your favourite movie as a child, find another adult a few years older than you and ask for their opinion on that movie. There’s a great chance they will either dislike or simply not connect with it in the same way. Ask millennials about Steven Spielberg’s Hook for the perfect example of this. So are The Beatles just a part of this rose-tinted rearview mirroring of culture?
No. The band have always been cited as monumental. As soon as they arrived on the scene, the entire world knew that they were something different. Among the countless acts that rose up alongside them in the same scene, only The Beatles have been heralded with such reverence. And, even at the time, as the group disbanded, everybody wanted to know who could take up the mantle. One candidate was T Rex.
There were evident parallels between The Beatles and T Rex. The most prominent of these is the similar circumstances that both acts experienced. After The Beatles split in 1970, glam rockers T. Rex enjoyed a fevered following similar to Beatlemania.
However, former Beatles frontman John Lennon was reportedly dismissive of glam rock, allegedly telling David Bowie in 1974 that it was nothing more than “rock ‘n’ roll with lipstick on”. Famously, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr disagreed with his old bandmate. He and T Rex frontman Marc Bolan were great friends, sharing a deep mutual admiration for each other’s work.
The starry-eyed Marc Bolan. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Interestingly, either David Bowie’s claim about John Lennon dismissing glam rock is entirely false, or Lennon was joking with his comment. This finding follows that of the Mac Bolan and T Rex fan site, Till Dawn, where writer ‘Michel L.’, translates a March 1972 article from the French-Canadian pop newspaper, Photo-Vedettes. It is highly significant as it quotes John Lennon praising Bolan, labelling him the “only one who can succeed to The Beatles”.
The source writes: “This is a French article (translation is mine) published in March 1972 in a French-Canadian pop newspaper called Photo-Vedettes. I became friends with this guy, Michel Goodwill, later on as I came to write for the same newspaper. And we met Marc together, later on in September, for The Slider Tour. I found this on October 14 during the Beatles Convention in Montreal. -Michel L.”
In the article, Lennon is quoted as saying: “In today’s pop music, there are only two things that interest me: rock ‘n’ roll and avant-garde poetry. Only one group today is of interest to me, Marc Bolan and T Rex. He is the only one who has excited me, and I look forward to meeting him again. His music is good rock ‘n’ roll; it has good beat, and it really swings.”
He concludes: “But it is mainly his lyrics that amaze me. His way of writing is new, and I have never read lyrics as funny and as real as his. Apart from few American exceptions, Marc Bolan is the only one that has caught my attention, and I believe his mythology is real as well. He will release a book of poetry in the near future, and I look forward to read it again and again. Marc Bolan is the only one who can succeed to The Beatles.”
It should be noted that Lennon would use a similar sort of expression to also shower praise on a few artists, notably Electric Light Orchestra, the Jeff Lynne outfit whom Lennon referred to as The Beatles’ “sons”. But there seems to have been special praise for Bolan, who, by all accounts, was a special musician.
Bolan would go on to have a major influence on popular culture, shaping the realms of music, art and fashion before tragically dying just two weeks before his 30th birthday in a fatal car accident. Retrospectively, his impact was immeasurable, as U2 guitarist The Edge perfectly encapsulated when he said: “It felt like he actually cast a spell. I’ve no doubt every aspect of how he presented himself was just an outpouring of his understanding that things could be magical, things could be heightened. Out in the ordinary world, he managed to cast a spell over all of us”.
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