T. Rex / Electric Warrior (Expanded Edition) [2003 Remaster] / 1971
The Motivator
euphoric, strutting, slightly camp
A glam-rock catalogue of infatuation, built almost entirely from repeated declarations of love for surface details — a walk, an outfit, a stolen crown, a hat. It's less a song about a person than a song about image-worship, glorying in style as a kind of power.
glamour and self-invention idol worship stardom as spectacle desire reduced to image rebellion via style
Who's speaking
A first-person admirer addressing a glamorous, almost mythic figure directly; the voice is breathless and uncritical, functioning more as a devoted fan or courtier than a lover with any distance or doubt.
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as accumulate praise: each verse adds another item to an inventory of the addressee's allure — gait, eyes, clothes, a stolen crown, a pet, a hat — building toward a sustained chant that dissolves language into pure sound by the end.
How it's built
Short verse-and-refrain units stack up almost identically, each pairing one image with a repeated 'love' line, giving the song a list-like, incantatory shape rather than a traditional narrative arc. The final section drops into wordless vocalizing before returning to the opening image, closing the loop rather than resolving it.
Section by section
Opening verse
The song begins with the body reduced to motion — a walk — praised as if it were itself a form of persuasion or leadership. Calling the subject a motivator frames charisma as almost a professional skill, something performed rather than simply possessed.
Eye and clothing verses
The comparisons escalate toward exoticism and excess — jewel-like eyes, clothes described in near-contradictory terms as tough yet liberating. The praise stays entirely external, cataloguing appearance rather than character.
The broken crown
“stole from the King and held for ransom”
This is the sharpest image in the song: glamour framed explicitly as theft from authority. The subject's appeal comes from usurping royal power rather than earning it, aligning charisma with rebellion and audacity.
Golden cat and velvet hat
“caused a revolution”
Domestic and fashionable details are given outsized, almost political consequence. The hat's supposed power to spark upheaval is comic hyperbole, but it also flatters the idea that style itself can be a disruptive force.
Closing vamp
Language breaks down into pure syllables before the song returns to its opening image of the walk, suggesting that admiration here isn't really about communication — it's about rhythm, repetition, and surrender to spectacle.
Craft
- anaphora
- The repeated 'I love the...' openings turn the song into a litany, mimicking obsessive fixation and giving even mundane details (clothes, a hat) an incantatory weight.
- imagery of royalty and theft
- References to a stolen crown and a revolutionary hat cast the subject as an outlaw-monarch, someone whose glamour comes from defying legitimate authority rather than inheriting it.
- synecdoche
- The person being addressed is never described as a whole; they're assembled entirely from parts and possessions, suggesting identity built purely from surface and adornment.
- vocalese/scat
- The dissolve into wordless 'la-la' syllables near the end lets rhythm and sound override sense, reinforcing the song's preference for texture and feel over meaning.
Reading it
Read most simply, this is a glam love song addressed to a stylish, possibly androgynous figure whose appeal lies entirely in aesthetic presentation — clothes, gait, accessories. A stronger reading treats the song as a meditation on Bolan's own glam persona: the crown-stealing, revolution-causing details suggest the singer is describing not a lover but an idealized rock-star self-image, one built from borrowed royal iconography and theatrical costume. Either reading holds; the lyric never disambiguates whether the 'you' is another person or an alter ego.
Context
Recorded during the sessions for Electric Warrior, T. Rex's breakthrough into glam rock, this track didn't make the original album and appears as a bonus/rarity on the expanded reissue. It shares the era's fascination with surface glamour, mythic imagery, and playful self-mythologizing that defined Bolan's early-70s persona, though I don't have confirmed details about its specific recording history or intended purpose.
Listen for
- the way each verse resolves into a near-identical chant, flattening variety into obsession
- the shift from concrete images (clothes, eyes) to abstract claims of political disruption (the hat 'causing a revolution')
- the vocal texture in the final wordless vamp, where meaning gives way to pure rhythm
- how royal/theft imagery elevates fashion into an act of rebellion
About T. Rex
T. Rex, originally Tyrannosaurus Rex, were an English rock band formed in London in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan, who was their leader, frontman and only consistent member.
1967 - 1977 / United Kingdom
Full biography and catalogue