Mentioning T Rex's One Inch Rock set me thinking about that strange song and what it may mean. Some time ago it crossed my mind that "I asked her name she said Germaine" was a reference to Germaine Greer. That may be the case. Quite what more we can say I know not.
In the book Ride a White Swan: The Lives and Death of Marc Bolan Lesley-Ann Jones writes
Times were a'changing on all fronts. Germaine Greer, outspoken Australian feminist and International Times and Oz magazine contributor, was now a household name, thanks to her best-selling 1970 work The Female Eunuch. Championing the cause of women's liberation beyond 'mere' equality with men, Greer became a high-profile figure on the London scene, and an unlikely friend of Marc (Bolan), (DJ) Jeff (Dexter) and June (Child). Jeff recounts outrageous nights in restaurants, when Germaine could always be relied upon to let down her hair and get up to mischief while Marc would be beside himself with mirth.
A website here refers to One Inch Rock as "a thinly veiled attack on Germaine Greer".
The lyrics are
Met a woman she's spouting prose
She's got luggage eyes and a roman nose
Her body is slung from side to side
Need a lift she said much obliged
I'm riding piggy-back
Then I came to her shack
We go inside the place it's a mess
She said my name's the liquid poetess
She unties her mouth
And her buckskin dress
She drinks from a bottle labelled tenderness
I'm in one hand in the other's a can
She puts me in the can
And smiles through the wall
I got the horrors 'cause I'm one inch tall
Next thing I know's a girl by my side
Dressed in a bayleaf she's trying to hide
I asked her name she said Germaine
Do the rock do the one inch rock.
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