Pictures Of Purple People

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At least two sets of manuscripts for Pictures Of Purple People exist, both dated May 1966. The first is an eight-scene story, handwritten on 27 pages of an exercise book and signed Marc Bolan. This exercise book is believed to have been sold through Christies Auctioneers during the early 1980s, after having been split into separate lots.

Reprinted here are the second set of manuscripts which were typewritten on fourteen sheets of thin paper, stapled together, and contain two versions of Pictures Of Purple People. The first is a twelve scene plot, the second, an extended eight scene version of the plot, reprinted here from a carbon copy. Both of these versions were typed by Mike Pruskin, a freelance publicist who managed Marc Bolan between 1965 and 1966 when they shared a basement flat in Manchester Street, London. It is probable that version one of these manuscripts is a direct copy from Marc's original handwritten story, and that plot two was typed as dictated by Marc Bolan, whilst referring to plot one.

This collection includes two other pieces from the same period, Electronic Musik and Signs , the latter presented alongside Bolan's handwritten original. This second piece, written early in April 1966, comes from a series of notebooks known to have been kept by Bolan through the mid 60s, in which he kept a journal of poems and short stories. The asterisk at the top of Bolan's handwritten text for Signs denotes that this piece had been selected by the author to be typewritten. It is probable that Electronic Musik was originally penned in a similar, as yet undiscovered notebook.

It is not possible to entirely separate Bolan's literary from his musical work. Marc Bolan had embarked upon a musical career in earnest during 1963, when, under his real name of Mark Feld, he tentatively recorded with producer Joe Meek. Further sessions took place in the following years, his interest in the British and American folk-rock scene saw him recording both Donovan and Dylan material. Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind was demoed early in 1965 under the pseudonym of Toby Tyler, and it is reported that he recorded three tracks from Donovan's debut album along with the 1965 B-side, Hey Gyp . Marc acknowledges the cultural heroes of the time and their influences on his image, voice and lyric style, featuring them within the surreal scenes of Pictures Of Purple People. The album, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, and a poster image of Dylan are included, and he appropriated the title of Hey Gyp as part of the dialogue between Jerry, the main character in the manuscript, and his friend Gyp. In May 1966, when these manuscripts were written, his second single, The Third Degree, was a month away from release.

For many years it was assumed that the storyline of a work known as Pictures Of Purple People was the basis of a song of the same name, recorded as a solo demo early in 1967, and later performed by Marc Bolan's group Tyrannosaurus Rex for the BBC's Top Gear radio programme at the end of that year. The adversarial character in the plot is Scenescof, a character of that name appeared in Marc's music in 1967 on a track of the same name on the Tyrannosaurus Rex debut album, but these manuscripts show no obvious link with either song. However, a later work The Scenescof Dynasty for the second Tyrannosaurus Rex album , a long narrative piece, bares occasional descriptive and stylistic similarities, demonstrating Bolan's fondness for a recurring theme.

This volume provides valuable insight into the early works of the author and further establishes that Marc Bolan's writing covered many forms, possibly in the case of Pictures Of Purple People, hinting at a stage or screenplay.