Marc Bolan was down but not for long. All he needed was a reason to continue. For once, the drive to succeed came from an external source rather than from within. Gloria was expecting a child - the 'Electric Warrior' suddenly was faced with the prospect of being a father. 'I'm going to live like a sane human being because I intend to be around for a long time yet,' he declared.
And it wasn't a moment to soon. Marc had collapsed after a week of heavy drinking. The doctors told him he had been very lucky and, without some serious rest and restructuring of his lifestyle, he might well die. He blamed most of his problems to his tax exile in the US, during which his lifestyle had declined to a level of heavy booze and cocaine abuse and little sleep. It was time, Marc decided, to return to his roots and his homeland. Despite the heavy tax burden, he came to realize that his destiny was not in the USA; it was back home where it all had begun - in the UK.
After pulling the pieces back together, Marc began to reassemble T.Rex. Steve Currie, the last remnant of the once majestic T.Rex, would remain on bass guitar. Gloria would play clavinet as well as provide backing vocals. Dino Dines, who had onced backed for the Beach Boys, would play keyboards. The band would be rounded out by Tyrone Scott on more keyboards and backing vocals and Davey Lutton on Drums.
Marc had already recorded another album months earlier but had put it on hold to avoid having it follow too closely on the heels of "Bolan's Zip Gun". It was a fuller album and better produced but it still needed dusted off and polished. From the songs on the album, Marc particularly liked one which he had written in New York one day when he saw a woman walking down a road petting a frog she was carrying. Combining a two line lyric about the incident with a riff from 'One Inch Rock', Marc had a new single. It was released in June of 1975 and rose to the 15th position on the singles chart. Not nearly as spectacular as in his golden days, but enough to convince everyone that T.Rex was still around.
The band hit the road in England to do a few minor and under-promoted "Ballroom" engagements. While initially justifying the small engagements as a concious attempt to avoid larger arenas, Marc later admitted that he feared he had lost his following and was merely testing the waters - hoping to avoid bad publicity had the engagements bombed. Quite the contrary, the shows sold out, giving Marc a much needed confidence builder.
At about this time, Marc stumbled upon somewhat of a second career when he was invited in for an interview on the Thame Television British 'Today' show with host Telly Savalas. During the interview, Marc literally took over the interview and began asking more questions of Telly Savalas than vice-versa. As a result, Thames Television contracted Marc to work for them as an interviewer. Among the people Marc interviewed were Angie Bowie, Keith Moon, John Mayall, and Stan Lee the creator of the Marvel Comic characters. Marc found this new career to be quite enjoyable but promised not to become another David Frost. He also used the opportunity to introduce two new songs on the show - "London Boys" and "Funky London Childhood".
The single "New York City" was followed by "Dreamy Lady" in September of 1975. It too charted but not as well as "New York City" had. This probably didn't matter too much to Marc, however, as he had his hands full. That same month, Rolan Seymour Bolan was born - Marc claimed to have delivered him himself. "This baby's made all the difference to my life," he said, "The most important thing is that he has given me a sense of responsibility. Whenever I feel myself getting silly and maybe thinking of slipping into my old ways I just imagine myself dying and Rolan never really having known me. That's a horrible thought."
In January of 1976, Marc and T.Rex launched the largest tour of England since 1971. One month later the long awaited 'Futuristic Dragon' album was released along with the next single 'London Boys' which was a song Marc wrote about his days as young boy in London. It has been nearly a year since the last album was released. On the front of this album was a painting of Marc dressed in a medieval warrior outfit riding on the back of an equally armored dragon. The album cover was reminiscent of the old Tyrannosaurus Rex days before Marc went from Tolkienism to pop rock. In addition, the album began with Marc reciting a brief poem about the 'Dragon' as an electric guitar shrilled with feedback in the background. It may have helped attract some of the old Tyrannosaurus Rex fans who had lost interest in him. But the music was far from the old stuff; the 'Electric Warrior' was not in the mood to give up his electric guitar.
'Futuristic Dragon' was still too pop for Marc who wanted to get back more to basic rock. By the time of its release Marc was well underway on his next project as well as helping Gloria record an album of her own (The album, for which Marc did some of the guitar work and background vocals as well as helped produce, would be called 'Vixen'). To set himself in the right mood for his next album, Marc went out and bought nine old rock albums, locked himself up in a room and listened to them, trying to get that old sound back into his head. He emerged with a new single called 'I love to Boogie' which was released in June of 1976. Although the press slammed it for sounding all too much like a copy of the 1956 tune "Teenage Boogie" (a club of Oldies fans even held a record burning to display their disgust), it turned out to be his biggest hit in years, reaching number 13 on the British charts. It would be the last chart hit Marc would ever produce.
Things were rapidly changing in the British music industry. Punk was exploding as the new wave. Many of the established rock bands were struggling with the changes. But Marc, who had already been through his struggle, was suddenly back on center stage. "I'm the originator of punk rock," he declared, "In America I was always billed as the Cosmic Punk." In the past such a statement would have elicited snickers from the press - and it surely did this time as well. But, not surprisingly, the cynics were muffled by an air of reality. A number of the emerging punk artists had gone through their teenage years listening to T.Rex music and acknowledged Marc's influence on their music. Thus, "The Cosmic Punk" became christened the "Father of Punk".
Marc gave up drinking for good and went on a diet to loose all of the excess weight he had put on during his exile. But all of the hustle and bustle of new projects couldn't keep the reformed Marc Bolan from recording a soft retrospective song. Like an elevator, Marc had risen from the bottom to the top and then fell back to the bottom. The song "Life's an elevator" was released on the flip side of "Laser Love" in September of 1976. "Laser Love" flopped taking "Elevator" with it - an unfortunate event for perhaps one of the more beautiful of the ballads Marc had every done.
Following the recording of Gloria's album, work on the new T.Rex album began. Marc replaced guitarist Jack Green with Miller Anderson and brought in session men Herbie Flowers on bass and Tony Newman on drums, both session musicians best known for their previous work with David Bowie. He retained Dino Dines on keyboards. Out of the original electric T.Rex, Steve Currie was the last to remain, but he too would depart after recording only a few of the new songs for the new album. Gloria had her own career now and made few appearances on the new album.
With the album complete, Marc went on TV to promote it. Slimmer than anyone could remember, he chose to perform the title track from the album. "Dandy in the Underworld" was the name of the song and the album. The song was, simply, a song about himself. It spoke of his downfall into the abyss of drugs and destruction and wondered as to when he would return. Mention of the word "cocaine" was not permitted on British TV thus forcing Marc to replace the line "cocaine nights" with "T.Rex nights". Though the answer to this question was not really answered in the song, Britain could have no doubt that Bolan was back on track.