‘Oh man, I need TV when I got T. Rex’: Bowie and Bolan’s otherworldly carnivalesque intermediality

ABSTRACT

David Bowie and Marc Bolan were peers in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, and during that time, they were sources for each other’s work. Perhaps due to Bolan’s own output being thus far relatively under-researched, Bowie’s relationship with him has also, until now, not been explored in scholarly depth. Thus, their mutual intermediality has also been overlooked. In exploring the links between the two artists, I argue that in particular, Bowie adopted and adapted Bolan’s early glam aesthetic, and further to this, that they drew upon each other’s carnivalesque personae, visual aesthetic, thematics and narrative structures. I argue that the intermediality between Bowie and Bolan also extended to a recognition, particularly within Bowie’s work, of each other’s media stardom. Theories of the carnivalesque, dialogism, and intertextuality provide the critical framework for what I contend is a dialogue between the two artists, in which they contributed to each other’s mythology and immortalised each other as the most important stars of the glam rock genre.

KEYWORDS:

• David Bowie
• Marc Bolan
• glam rock
• 1970s
• intermediality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See Blair 2016b.

2. Visconti also produced Bolan’s albums with Tyrannosaurus Rex, and his later 1970s albums Tanx (1973) and Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow (1974). His work with post-glam Bowie includes Young Americans (1975), Low (1977), ‘Heroes’ (1977), Lodger (1979), Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980), Heathen (2002), Reality (2003), The Next Day (2013), and Blackstar (2016).

3. Bayldon played the wizard ‘Catweazle’ in the children’s television show of the same name.

4. The track is narrated by radio DJ John Peel, who was a keen supporter of Bolan in the Tyrannosaurus Rex years.

5. ‘The Wizard’ was originally released in 1965 as a pop single for Decca. It was re-worked as a semi-psychedelic electric rock song for the T. Rex album in 1970.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alison Blair

Alison Blair is a PhD candidate at the University of Otago. Her research explores 1970s British glam rock from a Bakhtinian perspective. Her book chapter ‘Cosmic Dancer: Marc Bolan’s Otherworldly Persona’ has been published in the edited collection Global Glam: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s (Chapman and Johnson eds, 2016).