T. Rex shone brightly for two and a half years and had a good run in the charts but this would turn out to be the last Top Ten hit for the prettiest star of Glam.

It was a fantastic run of 10 Top Ten singles, including four No.1s and four No.2s and four number twos, as well as three No.1 albums. But it had to end; and after The Groover peaked at a comparatively disappointing No.4, it did.

Bolan’s gift for nonsense verse had already begun to fade before this – the previous single, 20th Century Boy, stalled at No.3 – but the words are still fun, and still make no sense at all: “Some call me Arnie, some call me Slim” Who’s Arnie? Who the hell is Slim?

There was one last surreal rhyming couplet to add to the list: “Some call me Starkey, some named me Stud (Yes they do) / It don’t make no difference / ‘Cause I move in the mud.” It’s presumably a reference to Ringo Starr, who had directed Bolan’s film Born To Boogie, and perhaps there is some sort of private joke involved.

Tony Visconti, who produced The Groover (and all the other T.Rex hits) said later that he could see the writing on the wall for Bolan at this time, with many of his fans moving over to Bowie, and a new wave of Glam bands coming along.

“There were new kids on the block doing the Glam thing and some were doing it much better than we were,” he wrote in his autobiography Bowie, Bolan & The Brooklyn Boy. “The teenyboppers had Slade and Gary Glitter but the cool kids were listening to Bowie and Roxy Music.”

Yep, that was me. The cool kid (if only I’d known it). But Bolan’s last hurrah was still decent – and an awful lot better than the next T. Rex single, the positively awful Truck On Tyke. And I’ve dug out this great live version with one of those great guitar solos Bolan did in concert.