27. Steve Peregrin Took

... being a look at the bongo man in Tyrannosaurus Rex, who fell out with, Marc Bolan, the other half of the duo, and came to an untimely end.

This piece is adapted from my 2016 publication Sixty Odd Songs, to which I hope to add a companion volume compiled from the writings on Sixty Odd Poems at some point next year.

I have always held the seventies rock group T-Rex and their sixties incarnation, Tyrannosaurus Rex, in high regard¹. Unfortunately most, if not all of them are dead now. I once went to see a T-Rex tribute band. “Mickey Finn’s T-Rex.” They were playing one of those outdoor seventies revival gigs alongside Alvin Stardust (who was surprisingly great) and Les McEwan's Bay City Rollers (who were unsurprisingly not)

The T-Rex act was excellent, the only fly in the ointment being Mickey Finn himself. He looked like a corpse, his skin was pale green, and he was unsteady on his feet. He certainly didn’t seem able to keep a rhythm on his bongos. Any other band would have probably kicked him out. But if this lot had kicked him out, they wouldn’t have been Mickey Finn’s T-Rex any more. They would have been just another T-Rex tribute band. Mickey was their unique selling point, their only connection to the real T-Rex. So they had to put up with him. 

I met him before he went on. I shook his hand and got his autograph like a proper pop fan. He was dead within two years. I don’t think that it had anything to do with me. But then again, at these open-air pop concerts there are not always he facilities to wash your hands after you have been to the toilet.

The concert was OK, but fairly pedestrian, until they called Graham Oliver out of Saxon up to the stage to be a guest performer. He lifted the atmosphere by several notches and put on a towering virtuoso performance on guitar. They also had Gary Shephard out of the Glitter Band guesting as well. Very good, but not as good as Oliver.

Poor old Mickey had the bad fortune to die at about the same time as Maurice Gibb out of the Bee Gees, although there was no connection between the two incidents. This meant that he was pushed out of the news a bit. Apparently the Bee Gees have maintained their popularity better than T-Rex did.

When I shook hands with Mickey, the traffic wasn’t all one way. In addition to the possibility of my speeding up his demise, he might have rubbed some of his stardust off on my, because within a few years I was the front man of a rock band of my own. The chart dodging popsters Pocketful O’Nowt. As soon as I was in a position to write and perform songs with people who could play music (something that I have never quite got the hang of), I decided that I should write a song about Mickey Finn. Not only would it be paying him back for the autograph and stardust imbued handshake, but also, because I loved writing about dead pop stars.

I soon ran into difficulties with the writing. The more that I thought about it, the harder it got. The reason it got hard was because I couldn't see any way to write a song about Mickey without at least mentioning his predecessor Steve Peregrin Took, who was also dead, in his case, he had died at the age of 31, tragically early, and only a decade or so after Marc Bolan had fired him from the band. 

It eventually became clear to me that the song would be much better if it were more about Steve, who seemed a much more fascinating character than Mickey.

I once read an article about T-Rex which mentioned that Steve had died with a cherry stone “stuck in his drug numbed throat”. I loved that line. It had a sense of chiding disapproval in it. It was his own fault his throat had got all drug numbed. It was also a bit ridiculous. A cherry stone! The story was a mixture of debauchery and innocence.

I sent Fee Mercury Moon Warner, Britain’s leading authority on Steve², a copy of the song, and she pointed out that it was a cocktail cherry rather than a cherry stone. That seemed to make it even more poetic, (and even more ridiculous) so I changed the lyrics to accommodate the fact. (Alas - too late for the recording)

I added a little extra poem at the end of the piece, which saw Steve, Marc and Mickey re-united in heaven. Sparks mention heaven quite a lot in their songs, so I felt that I ought to make the effort, seeing as I was modelling my pop song writing career on that of Ron Mael. 

Incidentally. Mickey Finn’s T-Rex went on to climb to even greater heights after Mickey Finn’s departure. A bit like Tyrannosaurus rex did after Steve’ departure 22 years earlier. They too shortened their name to T-Rex, and then signed up Graham Oliver on a more regular basis, and charged a fortune for performing something called corporate gigs in all corners of the Earth. 

I put a few references to Tyrannosaurus Rex songs into the lyrics. How many can you spot, dear reader?

Steve Peregrin Took

Steve Peregrin Took
had a charming English hippie look
that English hippie lasses found appealing.
When he travelled up and down the land
as the bongo man in Bolan's band
he pulled more birds than Bolan did
and Bolan hit the ceiling

And the people of the Beltane
and the Dworns were all dismayed.
And the king of the Rumbling Spires
Decreed that solemn music played
as Bolan said (Hey Hey)

Steve Peregrin Took,
you'll have to sling your hook
I'm replacing you with a man called Mickey Finn.
And now I’ll get more birds because 
the lasses will not care a toss
for Mickey because Mickey is 
as hideous as sin,

And Stacey Grove (who was a nice guy) 
locked himself away
and the Children of the Rarn refrained 
from frolic, song and play
that fateful day (Hey hey)

when Steve Peregrin Took 
gave Bolan a withering look
and formed new bands to play the songs he wrote.
He was in Pink Fairies and Shagrat
and Steve Took's Horns and bands like that
but then he choked to death 
with a cocktail cherry
stuck in his drug numbed throat.

Epilogue
Saint Peter and The Lord both smiled
when Took and Bolan reconciled
in the eternal kingdom high.
They played some great gigs in the sky.
And when death came to Mickey Finn
they gladly asked him to join in.
For up in heaven (as they found)
there's plenty birds to go around.

Here’s the original recording free and gratis, of my song Steve Peregrin Took, featuring the BullyWee Man on guitar (but that’s another story)

1. …as has Alex Oliver who took me to task for suggesting that Marc Bolan was a more poetic lyricist than Jimi Hendrix, who he holds in equal regard. If you are not up to date with this debate on arcane musical matters read my Pete Painted Jimi Hendrix and Alex’s Lyricism.

After you have done that, for further evidence of the fascination that old men hold on the dead rock stars of their youth, take a few moments out of your day to read Frank Colley’s poem Gypsy Lane

2. Fee produced an excellent tome on Steve “A Trip Through Ladbroke Grove”