Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.
The music of T. Rex has often been used in films and television to evoke the stylish swagger and debauched effulgence of the British glam rock scene that frontman Marc Bolan led in the early ’70s. But Longlegs, the surprise box office hit of the summer of 2024, tapped into the latent menace in Bolan’s cryptic lyrics and tremulous singing voice to great effect.
The horror film, directed by Osgood Perkins, is bookended by text of lyrics from the T. Rex’s biggest hit “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” at the beginning of Longlegs, and a needle drop of the song itself over the closing credits. There are repeated implications that the title character, a mysterious killer played by Nicolas Cage, is a huge fan of the band, such as a Marc Bolan poster on his wall. When an FBI agent deciphers coded messages in his letters, there are extra words that don’t fit in the puzzle: “jewel” and “slider,” both of which are T. Rex song titles. “Jewel,” from the band’s 1970 self-titled album, becomes oddly chilling in the context of the film’s ominous first act.
Perkins didn’t begin writing Longlegs with T. Rex on his mind. But after watching an episode of Apple TV docuseries 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything that detailed T. Rex’s explosion in popularity that year, Perkins started to get into the band as he worked on his screenplay. “When I’m writing something or creating something or developing something, I’m really trying to keep my ears open. I’m listening to T. Rex, and it’s just coming really loud and clear on that frequency,” Perkins said in a 2024 Rolling Stone interview. “It didn’t feel like instantly a perfect match. But that’s the kind of weird mismatch that made it even more appealing to me.”
Bolan had formed Tyrannosaurus Rex as a psychedelic folk duo in the late ’60s, recording four albums before shortening the band’s name and pivoting to more succinct, upbeat songs with electric guitar. Initially, Bolan and drummer Mickey Finn were still the only two members, and “Jewel” features buzzing riffs and wailing solos over Finn’s soft but insistent hand drum beat.
By the time Bolan released T. Rex’s next album Electric Warrior and appeared on the German television series Beat-Club in 1971, the band had expanded to a quartet. Drummer Bill Legend sat out the performance of “Jewel,” however, leaving Bolan and bassist Steve Currie to jam over Finn’s hypnotic bongo rhythm.
Three more essential T. Rex deep cuts:
“Life’s a Gas”
Bolan appeared on singer Cilla Black’s BBC variety show Cilla in 1973, singing a lovely acoustic duet of Electric Warrior’s “Life’s a Gas” with the host.
“Buick MacKane”
Guns N’ Roses played a medley of The Slider’s anthemic “Buick MacKane” alongside Soundgarden’s “Big Dumb Sex” for their 1993 covers album The Spaghetti Incident?
“Born to Boogie”
The 1972 T. Rex concert film Born to Boogie, directed by Ringo Starr, was named after a great as-yet-unreleased Bolan song that appeared on Tanx the following year. Frequent T. Rex backing vocalists Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, better known as Flo & Eddie, sing every line of “Born to Boogie” in unison with Bolan. Volman passed away in September at the age of 78.
