Talk:Get It On (T. Rex song)

Musician credits?

Who's playing on the song? I remember reading an interview in Record Collector with a keyboard player (Rick Wakeman?) who was hired to play the minimal keyboard part in the bridge because he was a friend of Tony Visconti and Marc Bolan, they wanted to give him a session every week so he could pay his rent. Flo and Eddie sing backing vocals, sez the Flo and Eddie page. Mickey Finn contributes subliminal percussion, I assume, and Marc Bolan sings lead and plays guitar. Anyone else? Juryen (talk) 03:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I always thought it was Elton John who played the keys on this song - he appears with Marc et al., on TOTP as you can see on YT. Maybe on the Bolan Boogie film too. I love this song.... so did my first ever girlfriend. Happy memories from 1971. BTW there should also be mention of the other version of the song on the re-issue of the EW CD where you hear Marc counting them in. Fantastic. Royzee (talk) 11:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Infobox PLEASE!!!

Could somebody please provide a cover image from the 45 and infobox for this article? And some real info 'bout the riff wouldn't go amiss around these parts.

Ask and ye shall receive.....someone else will have to hunt up the cover art though. — Catherine\^talk 20:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Wasn't the real reason for the decision to change the name of the track to Bang A Gong in the US, that there was a chart hit called Get It On in the Morning by Chase?

Imaginative interpretation of lyrics.

Any substantial interpretation of lyrics requies a direct citation. I removed the following tex:

The song is about a woman (possibly June Child, the wife of singer and songwriter Marc Bolan), whom the narrator claims is clad in black and the object of his love. He then goes on to suggest that she succumbs to his sexual prowess and that she's built like a car with "a hubcap diamond-star halo". The narrator also states that he wants to "take a chance on the stage" with the woman, and that she also has a "groove up her shoes".

At the end of the song, he moans "take me" (which was extremely risqué at the time).

It had outrageous lyrics for its time, and many radio stations in America refused to play it. In the UK the BBC strangely had no such qualms and played the song (and its B-side, "Raw Ramp" containing the line "Baby, I'm crazy about your breasts"). Other equally suggestive songs of the period (such as Paul McCartney and Wings' "Hi, Hi, Hi"), were actually banned.

To suggest that the lyrics are in any way "outrageous" for their time (1971) is ridiculous. The lyrics are no more than suggestive in a manner fairly common to the time. Comparing a woman to car is also a common metaphor: "Little Red Corvette," "Jeepster," "Maybeline," etc. Prior to T-Rex their were plenty of much more directly sexual lyrics in mainsteam music. "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (c.1955) is in itself a sexual reference, and the actually outrageous lyric "I'm like a one-eyed cat, peeping in a seafood store" somehow made it past the censor in the Pat Boone cover of the song (though the follow-up line "I can look at you 'till you ain't no child no more" didn't. Years before "Get in on" the Stones were telling us to "spend the night together" and don't forget "Starfucker," which was listed on the album and single as "Star Star."

The line (shouted, not "moaned": "Take Me!" isn't in the main lyric. It is a stage interjection not present in other versions. And "extremely risqué"? Wow. Was the writer around in 1971? I could go on and on.... -- Cecropia

Indeed, if he thinks this song is extremely risqué, he should listen to "Lola" sometime... Stonemason89 (talk) 04:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Were you guys listening to music in 1971? I was.

Yes, this song could be considered risqué for the time, if that's what it is about.

Just because you can cite a handful of counter examples, recorded in double entendres, does not say anything about the other 99% of pop music. The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" is typical radio fare in 1971.

You've got a hit like "Bus Stop (song)" by the Hollies where the objective is to get married.

The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". Lennon fell asleep at some girl's apartment. Omigod! he is saying that he slept with the girl! Omigod! Those are conservative times, people, in the widely disseminated (double entendre) culture.

There is outrageous blues and jazz in the 1930s, but average people were and are unaware of that, even now.

There is a Yes song where Jon Anderson probably says "a talk by the water". With his accent, he might be saying "toke". In the 1980s, people were asking, "Did he say toke? Did he say toke?" since illicit or sexual references were still uncommon in 1980, in keeping with popular culture generally, where 1950s television shows were commonly broadcast, and 1970s programmes were only starting to loosen up.

And yes, "Lola" by the Kinks is really really wild stuff for those days. Nowadays, you would probably guess where the song is going. Back then? No, probably not. Homosexuality, back then, is a weird illegal perversion practised by a tiny, tiny handful of criminals. "Gay" still means very happy; the words used in normal conversation are fag(got), homo, fruit, queer. "Homo" is what you call your friend when he can't catch the ball. This is pre-HIV, when homosexuality and transvestism were invisible. Liberace had sworn in court that he was into girls. Then our old schoolteachers started dropping dead of AIDS. Like my public school principal, a decent enough guy.

The word "condom" was never spoken in those days; the word I remember was a "safe". You still used to hear the term "French letter". The way I remember it being was you went to a men's room in a shitty bar if you were going to pick up a hooker. Nowadays, they are probably discussing condoms on Sesame Street.

Varlaam (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Bus Stop

I've added a reference to the Bus Stop cover version of the song that was included in the G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra movie. The DVD commentary says that the song was used as a temp track and it became so popular with the post-production staff, they ended up marrying it to the final cut. However, I did not add that to the article itself because I'm unsure how to cite it as verifiable. Medleystudios72 (talk) 16:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

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"Inadvertent extra chorus"

At Flo & Eddie, it states: 'They were backing vocalists on the T. Rex song "Get It On", singing the inadvertent extra chorus that "worked".' There's no explanation in this article what that refers to, but it sounds interesting and probably worth covering, if there's something unusual about the chorus lines in this song and how they developed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Get it on/Hot Love

Still anybody here to answer my question? I own a single by T.Rex, A Get it on - B Hot Love. Cube Records 2016 011. I own it for about 50 years. Now my question, which may be important for this article: When was this single released: before or after Hot Love/Woodland Rock?Rudihaase (talk) 11:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)