Ride a White Swan

Bolan wrote it, and Fly released it on 9 October 1970 as the first single credited to T. Rex. It ran to under two minutes and had no drums. It has four layered guitar tracks, with Bolan also playing Visconti's Fender Precision bass with a capo on the fourth fret, a small string section, and a tambourine and handclap recorded in the bathroom of Trident Studios for the room echo. Visconti looped Bolan's "da da dee dee dah" vocal line six times at the end to bring the song to two and a quarter minutes. It was on the US version of the T. Rex album.

It entered the UK top 50 on 24 October 1970 and reached number 2 on 23 January 1971, held off the top by Clive Dunn's novelty record Grandad. It peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100. Bolan performed it twice on Top of the Pops with Finn miming bass. Prefab Sprout's Paddy McAloon called it the song that vindicated his love of pop. It is heard in the film Billy Elliot.