10 Greatest T. Rex Songs Ever
5. 20th Century Boy
Inspired by the famous Muhammad Ali quote that saw him claim he would “fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” 20th Century Boy is T. Rex’s most sexually charged song. Think about the ground that covers! We can only imagine how many kids were conceived to this one...
Opening up on an orgasmic yowl and one of the band’s heaviest guitar riffs, Bolan proceeds to fill his lyrics with animal and vehicle-based innuendos over an urgent rhythm. You can practically hear the lascivious grin on his face as he claims he’s gonna, “charge like a ram,” “move like a cat” and “ball like a hound”.
An early demo featured Elton John on piano and Ringo Starr on drums. Neither is on the finished version, but you could easily believe they were, buried somewhere in Tony Visconti’s dense wall of sound production.
The finished take ends on an ecstatic scream, but in the studio the track featured an extra three minutes of furious jamming.