Innuendo and allegory have always been an integral part of rock and roll songwriting. From the earliest traditional blues to contemporary chart hits, clandestine meanings and suggestive implications are part of what makes rock and blues so attractive to rebels, renegades, and lovers. From squeezing lemons, wang dang doodles, and heaps of brown sugar, rock and blues songs have always brimmed with double entendre’s and underlying themes.

British singer, songwriter, guitarist and glam rocker Marc Bolan was one musician who enjoyed operating in the grey areas of double meaning and winking sexuality. With his band, “T. Rex,” and cuts like “Telegram Sam,” “Slider,” and the subject of today’s Talk from the Rock Room rant, “Jeepster,” Bolan referenced his own double meanings, and in this particular track, an expression of charged sexuality using the metaphor of a car.

Released on November 5, 1971, as the follow-up single to, “Get It On,” “Jeepster,” hailed from the “T. Rex,” album Electric Warrior. The “T.Rex” name was the next step for Bolan after leaving the trippy acoustic based roots of the previously named Tyrannosaurus Rex in the rear view and becoming firmly entrenched in a ostentatious glam rock, power pop, blues hybrid.

Bolan obviously listened to Chess Record 1813 ad infinium, as “Jeepster’s” jumping rhythm is lifted straight from the grooves of Howlin’s Wolf’s 1962 single, “You’ll Be Mine,” written by blues legend Willie Dixon. Bolan even absconds with the first two lines of Wolf’s version for his own. But, like the best artists, Bolan co-opts and recreates, playing tribute, while also creating something completely new. Bolan’s vision was produced by Tony Visconti, who also worked with David Bowie for most of his career. Musically, the song is like many of Bolan’s compositions of the era, built on a rockabilly lilt and driven by a chunky Les Paul riff.

The song opens with hard hitting drums decorated with on-the-spot percussion, foot stomps, and hand claps. “That was an interesting accident” says producer Tony Visconti. After finding out that there was a broken microphone preamp that caused distortion in Bolan’s vocals, it was also discovered that the same mic captured Bolan’s boot heels stomping out the rhythm on the hardwood floor with a strange chorused echo. These additional sonic relics were kept on the single release. Bolan’s distorted vocal track was also kept as what Visconti called “a happy accident,” lending a strange quivery feel to Bolan’s double tracked vocals.

The gritty shifty accents and start and stop syncopation of Wolf’s shuffle are transposed to Bolan’s reading but enveloped in chrome and decorated with make up . Rhythmically, the song begins on a hard hitting 4/4 groove that is soon intersected with rattling percussion and the aforementioned boot stomps. The song begins in the key of A but then changes midway through to the key of C increasing its inherent melodicism while lending a punky originality. Bolan’s chunky overdriven guitar shifts Wolf’s accents into a hard hitting roly-poly arrangement that separates it from its straight blues influence into something that dances while leaving resplendent glitter in its wake.

Of special note is Bolan’s layered guitar work that streaks underneath the song’s powerful central lick. Bolan weaves his way through the heavy guitar riff with sneaky clean and succinct licks.

“Jeepster,” is a word Bolan used to elicit a feeling, which he was successful in doing. A “Jeepster,” is a proto-SUV vehicle manufactured by Willys-Overland Motors from 1948-1950. The term would enter the lexicon in England because of the popularity of “T.Rex’s” song, that connects the ambiguous meaning of a rugged male, who is just a “Jeepster,” and is in hot pursuit of his female “Jaguar”. Bolan sings the simile of “Just like a car you’re pleasing to behold. I’ll call you Jaguar if I may be so bold, cause your my babe. Yes, you’re my love. Girl, I’m just a Jeepster for your love.”

The chorus features an orchestrated descending guitar lick that increases the dramaticism when shared with Bolan’s off mic groans and moans culminating in the concluding lyric, “Girl, I’m just a vampire for your love and I’m gonna suck ya!” The song accelerates to the fade out with a series of rock and roll riffs and in the moment Bolan verbal exclamations.

“Jeepster,” reached number two in the UK singles chart and is recognized as one of “T. Rex’s” greatest songs. In addition to several high-octane live readings, in the 1972 film Born to Boogie, during the “Tea Party Medley,” segment Bolan plays  a trunicated “Jeepster,” with a string quartet illustrating another aspect to the song’s personality. A unique rendition with a completely different vibe, worthy of checking out. The song “Jeepster,” has traveled a rare road from its genesis through its recorded influence. Pulled from the blues, rearranged for rock, and referenced by British pop, indie punk, post-punk and others genres, it is one of those special songs that stands on its own merits, and continues to influence and confound.