A “new” T. Rex song from 1975 is released to mark what would have been the 78th birthday of Glam idol Marc Bolan.

I’m never too optimistic when someone unearths a posthumous recording of someone whose music you loved. And T. Rex were my favourite band when I was a boy.

So I was cautious about the news that an entirely new track has been dug out of the vaults after 50 years. The news was announced on Marc Bolan’s birthday yesterday.

That was also the day a blue plaque was placed at one of his former homes, in Clarendon Gardens, Maida Vale, where he lived from 1970-72. There is already a plaque at his childhood home near me, at Stoke Newington Common, where he grew up from 1947-62.

The plaque was unveiled by Rick Wakeman – he played that memorable piano glissando on Get It On – alongside other musicians including Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies of The Damned and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream.

Bolan would have been 78 had he not died, at the age of 29 in that car crash back in 1977. It’s a day I remember so well: there had been other famous rock’n’roll deaths but this was the first that meant something personally to me.

I had just started my first job as a reporter on the Hackney Gazette and Marc’s death was big news as he was a Hackney boy himself.
As a schoolboy I used to buy all the T. Rex singles, from Ride A White Swan back in 1970 all the way up to The Soul Of My Suit some six years later. 

At boarding school I remember rushing to my dorm after dinner to catch the Radio Luxembourg power play of Metal Guru every hour, pressing my ears to my pillow while it played on my tiny “tranny” radio.

So here’s the new one: I’m Dazed was first recorded at Château d’Hérouville studios near Paris in March 1975 and this – the second version – was re-recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich. 

With Marc producing and Reinhold Mack (Sparks, Queen, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones) in the engineer’s chair, the track features the classic mid-‘70s T. Rex lineup of Marc, Steve Currie, Gloria Jones, Davey Lutton, and Dino Dines.

The track has been mixed from master tapes by progmeister Steven Wilson, who turns out to be a self-confessed T. Rex superfan, and he’s done a fantastic job. 

It’s released on a limited edition 7″ single on November 7, backed with another previously unreleased track, a studio out-take of Bolan rarity Billy Super Duper.