When most think of the songs of T.Rex, they think of Bang a Gong (Get it On), Jeepster and many others.  But for us, ever since it was released in 1973 on their stupendous album, “Tanx,” we always think first of Marc Bolan’s big-hearted ballad, Broken Hearted Blues.  And then we hit repeat (in part because the song is too short).   We will admit that we first heard this song on an 8-track in our cousin’s car (thanks to Mike Gridley for having great taste in the summer of 1973, four years before Marc Bolan’s car-crash death), and until very recently only owned it in vinyl.

“This is a song, that I wrote when I was young,
And I called it, the broken hearted blues,
The air on that night, was tempered like a knife,
And the people wore the face masks of a clown,
Dawn it was long, misshapen and forlorn,
And his woman ran away without a smile.

Days of the earth, are unbroken changeless turf,
But the faces of the men are something else.
In the wind, as a boy, was a spacious sexual toy,
But baby, now he’s a toothless baggy man,
When the hills of the sun, make you feel that you are young,

Get good now, and face your face into the wind.

This is a song, that I wrote when I was young,
And I called it the broken hearted blues.”