Tyrannosaurus Rex
A Beard Of Stars

In the summer of 1969, the definitive split between Marc Bolan and Steve "Peregrin" Took unfolds. For a couple of years, they were the protagonists of the folksy and hippie London underground (not so under as they managed to almost reach the top ten, thanks to John Peel's sponsorship, who, among other things, took them by car to his DJ sets. A forerunner even in that, the dear departed; one of the many in this story).

Took is shown the door after a miserable American tour, simultaneous with the Three Days of Peace and Music, which he undertakes in a dark mood already knowing he's out, but compelled by financial retaliation threats. He handles it as he knows, completely and permanently ultra-high, ignoring exactly "on what," with Bolan increasingly irritated by what he sees as sabotage from his now ex-friend and partner. One evening, amidst a rabble of electric bands playing before and after them, he thinks it's appropriate to draw the audience's attention, which perhaps didn't even notice that the tense duo had started playing, by baring the upper part of his body, unbuckling his pants belt, and flogging his back, shoulders, and chest.

It's not just Took's eccentricities that condemn him to exclusion; Bolan can no longer stand Steve's freak friendships either, who often mingles with people like Mick Farren or Twink, counterproductive for the duo's "image." In this regard, it seems Took objected: "What Image? Everyone knows I'm a junkie!"

If these slight differences weren't enough, the drug addict also becomes friends with Mark's idol, that Syd Barrett whom Our Man also accompanies on the conga in Rhamadan, the Barrettian Holy Grail revealed from the scrape of the barrel that was Wouldn’t You Miss Me, a collection curated by Gilmour a lustre before El Cid cast off the moorings of his earthly life. Nothing much, in the end; an amorphous jam and not, obviously, Interstellar Overdrive, further loaded with overdubs. But we had fantasized about it for years, innocent and hopeful kids that we were.

If that weren't enough to displease the Little King, filling his elf heart with disdain and resentment, the ever more insistent request from Peregrin to include some of his pieces in the records does the trick. The Affront at this point becomes Utterly and Absolutely Inadmissible:

M.A.I.!

Predictable for everyone, given the proverbial self-esteem of the company's head, except for Took, who indeed leaves for his destiny, into the arms of the friends of Ladbroke Grove, wrapped in a fog that will prevent him from fully expressing his talent, which surely deserves separate discussion, dying three years after Bolan, officially choked by a cherry pit. Let's say. But finally well-off, having won a legal dispute shortly before, as a meager consolation.

With poor Steve Took archived, Bolan and Tony Visconti (there's Bowie taking notes in the meantime) recruit Mickey Finn, whose memory is not insulted if it is stated that he was taken essentially for the physical resemblance to his predecessor. (The logic of the Kleenex was not so reprehensible for the Swan, and thus the replacement had to be painless. Besides, who notices? Poor Finn at some point must endure Bolan's frown when he decides to cut the beard he flaunts on the back cover of this debut under the future Electric Warrior’s orders, and which made him resemble the exile so much). With the new addition, and with renewed enthusiasm from Bolan, the minimal team gets back to work to produce one of the most fitting examples of a transition album, the last one under the name Tyrannosaurus Rex, "A Beard of Stars." Which, programmatically, begins with a "Prelude" practically made of just electric guitar, Mark’s newly acquired Stratocaster.

Unheard of, considering the duo's journey until Unicorn. In fact, the direction had already started to noticeably veer towards that electric sound which would make T. Rex's fortune even when Took was still part of the lineup. Indeed, in July 1969, the 45 "King of the Rumbling Spires/Do You Remember" was an interesting experiment, especially side A, albeit not with overwhelming success (it did not reach the Top 40). Moreover, it sparked criticism from many die-hard fans (one of humanity's plagues) and the barbs from the freak commune that represented much of their fan-base at the time, deeming it too "commercial" (the debate on the definition is as old as the hills and has never left anyone unscathed. Over the decades, Loyal).

Bolan knows that to achieve what he wants, it is necessary to propose the change more gradually. In this sense, A Beard Of Stars represents a step back from the aforementioned single, but also a move of great tactical intelligence. So much so that Mark, almost to reassure, immediately after the intro, places a classic of acoustic freakery like "A Daye Laye," all Universal Love and comforting and optimistic melody, in the path already marked by the previous three works, but with an added sensation of a strange state of grace that pervades his pen, in this and several other episodes of the album.

Nothing strange, considering that his private life is particularly happy at this time. He marries June Child, Barrett's ex-girlfriend and secretary of the legendary Blackhill Enterprises (the company managing the early Pink Floyd, which organized the free festivals in Hyde Park, and hopefully followed Barrett in his solo path, leaving Waters, Wright, and Mason to the sad fate of future multi-billionaires), and his creative streak evolves in more accessible and structurally more complete forms and directions compared to the previous trilogy. Consider "Pavillions of Sun," a declaration of love for his Princess, where he mischievously insinuates: "Come, come, come into my Garden, Beloved/Maybe I can hold your hand made of gold/Slip into my golden Grove, Beloved..." before indulging in an electric outburst with distortion and wha-wha. A simple piece, as usual, but capable of changing the mood; try to believe.

The jewel of the album is one of the songs Took had also started working on, whose parts were later erased when Finn took over, "Wind Cheetah." On a delightfully evocative and buzzing carpet of organ and distorted guitar that could also have been a Barrett piece from the phase when Late Night was born, Mark's voice unusually doubles on the low register an austere melody reciting some of the most inspired verses of the record: "She with the plough trodden by the moon/Herds of cows grazed on her fragrant and pale beauty/Young once, still infused with youth/Willow muse and ploughed fields..."

We are still obviously in the field of hippy daydreams as far as the lyrics are concerned, but Bolan is working on it. For now, the climate remains the same even in other beautiful ballads like "Great Horse," a possible hybrid between Barrett and the late Beatles' George Harrison, or "Dove," a declaration of lack, nostalgia, and need for the beloved person immersed in a composed but suspended and almost lethargic atmosphere, effective in describing the sensations evoked by the words.

Throughout the album, Bolan insinuates the sound of the electric guitar, weaving it into the classic structures of his songs or highlighting other facets of his style more functional to these insertions, globally distributed with a sense of measure; in "Woodland Bop," he launches harbingers of the boogie that will be and that has always been within him, in the title track he ventures into a solo that in itself is pointless, but acquires meaning if one thinks of the project stirring in the elf's mind, doing discreetly better (obviously not Blackmore) closing the circle logically, and this time indeed as a true inflamed Rock and Roll Electric Knight, with "Elemental Child," the most accomplished example, along with "By the Light of a Magical Moon," of the handover from the Tolkien-inspired imagination to the sweat of the Rock Group, from Letting Go of Nonsense and Getting Up to Dance, which in its becoming transforms into that frenzied boogie on which Bolan would soon found an empire as dazzling as fragile, whose fleeting glory would present an unjust counterpoint to its creator.

But here, the good and subsequent bad of the Glory had not arrived yet; it is still the magical moment where everything is in potential that is captured in this imperfect but certainly the most complete of the four records, with very few superfluous moments and a much smaller concentration of issues, especially compared to the first two albums, here very few and not particularly pernicious.

As much as I am part of the Steve Took Partisan Brigade, this is the best album by Tyrannosaurus Rex; more concrete, more lively, more varied, and fun.

Finished at 2:35 AM on January 5, 2025