JETHRO TULL - Today Is The One Day I Would Change For A Monday
THIS WAS
Released: 25th October 1968
Side 1
My Sunday Feeling
Some Day The Sun Won't Shine For You
Beggar's Farm
Move On Alone
Serenade To A Cuckoo
Side 2
Dharma For One
It's Breaking Me Up
Cat's Squirrel
A Song For Jeffrey
Round
I've spent the last few weeks dissecting the musical partnership of Lennon and McCartney (albeit with a level of knowledge and insight of a meat cleaver). They spent 7 glorious years developing their musical differences. Jethro Tull, however, and the partnership of Ian Anderson and Mick Abrahams, got it all sorted out over the course of their first album, after which Anderson ploughed on with the name and a brand of folk-rock, while Abrahams pursued the blues with Blodwyn Pig who fizzled out after two albums. I'm fairly confident that the musical progression that the Beatles made in their 7 years of studio recording will far outstrip Tull's development over the last 40, although I might be surprised.
You can already hear the schism in this first album. Anderson's flute lends a unique sound which anglicizes the standard blues structures. Also Anderson's characteristic rolling burr of a voice is there from the start. Having heard a lot of interviews with him I would swear he was from the west country, but apparently he was born in the Kingdom of Fife and schooled in Lancashire. Of course the fact that this example of a British rock dinosaur started out as a blues band should surprise precisely no-one, since this was the approved path for anyone who was going to last into the seventies and beyond. Tull mess around with jazz as well and there is quite a lot of purely instrumental stuff on here, although the first few tracks have vocals, including Anderson grunting and groaning through his flute on 'Beggar's Farm' and Abrahams on 'Move On Alone'.
Allegedly Anderson had only been playing the flute for a few months prior to this album, but his performance on 'Serenade To A Cuckoo' is pretty good. Probably his practice piece. It's a jazz standard and has the feel of Pink Panther-era Henry Mancini about it. Having no formal training means that he gets far more out of the flute than you'd expect. Things get heftier on 'Cat's Squirrel'. The Spotify version has some nice extra BBC sessions tracks. I find the cover a bit baffling, it has the feel of a renaissance painting, but Anderson assumes the form of a hobbity Noddy Holder in a canine sea. There's lots of facial hair, some odd hats and colourful weskets.
STAND UP
Released: 25th July 1969
Side 1
A New Day Yesterday
Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square
Bouree
Back To The Family
Look Into The Sun
Side 2
Nothing Is Easy
Fat Man
We Used To Know
Reasons For Waiting
For A Thousand Mothers
One of my goals with these posts is to answer some of the questions that I've always had about music I love, but have never been bothered to investigate. So Stand Up, sends me to the intellectual scratching post that is the internet to relive the itch of "What is a bourée?". My guess would have been some exotic dish, probably prepared in a pestle and mortar, but it is much simpler than that, it is a gavotte-like dance and Anderson's instrumental here is a version of Bach's E Minor Bourée which was originally written for the lute. It's quite telling that Anderson was openly taking inspiration from classical music and traditional instruments. His version on the flute is compelling, and he's unafraid to improvise a rock song out of it.
For this album Abrahams had been replaced by Martin Barre, who carried on throughout the rest of Tull's career. I was going to claim that that made This Was something of a false start, and maybe this is the first Jethro Tull Album, but This Was is a good album and tells you lots about where Anderson was coming from. The blues framework is now overlaid with lots of heavier rock sounds. I think the thing that grabbed me about Jethro Tull when I first heard them was that they seemed to define that time on the cusp of the sixties and seventies better than anyone else. I'm of an age where I was a very small child at that time, so my memory and experience of what was going on in the world was drawn in very broad strokes. Hearing 'Folk rock' later in life pushed buttons for me and evoked shabby young men with beards, pottery, macramé and brown décor, which is what the late sixties and early seventies in Britain was all about wasn't it?
Jethro Tull always had a ribaldry about them too. Here it's 'Fat Man', which today would probably be banned, or at least cause a minor twitterstorm (which is worse) for being insensitive to the obese. Anderson's view is that fat men are stereotyped as being "just good fun" and are not able to get a woman, he'd rather be a thin man thanks. It's a great song and even The Beatles could have learned something about effective use of Indian instruments in a rock context.
Spotify includes 'Sweet Dream' (and loads more) which was a single but not on the album and carries a fair amount of menace. The artwork on this is great too. It looks like it has been drawn by Maurice Sendak and was indeed intended to have the look of a children's book, with some kind of complex pop-up arrangement going on I believe (so that the band would 'Stand Up'). Also, another one that could be coloured in during a boring Webex meeting on a Wednesday afternoon.
BENEFIT
Released: 20th April 1970
Side 1
With You There To Help Me
Nothing To Say
Alive And Well And Living In
Son
For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me
Side 2
To Cry You A Song
A Time For Everything
Inside
A Play In Time
Sossity You're a Woman
I had this all those years ago (it always seemed to be going for a low price), but I hardly listened to it. It ain't particularly easy, but the mellowing effects of time have made me more tolerant and having listened to it over the past week, I can now appreciate it for being a quietly masterful album. It isn't what you'd call pacey, and Tull could go at it hammer and tongs if they wanted to. Anderson's vocals are measured and almost monastic in places. Barre's guitar is often fuzzy and sometimes he rocks out like a good 'un.
The first three albums all contain song titles that refer to 'Jeffrey' ('Song For Jeffrey', 'Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square' and 'For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me'), but the titular Jeffrey Hammond actually joined the band in 1971 as bassist. Here that instrument is handled by Glenn Cornick and all you devotees of the four thick strings would do well to listen to what is going on in the background of 'Inside'. There is some mucking around with playing instruments backwards on 'Play In Time' which I could have done without. Extras on Spotify include singles 'Witches Promise' and 'Teacher'. I don't like the artwork, it's dull and you can't really make the band out especially on the tiny cassette version I had.
AQUALUNG
Released 19th March 1971
Side 1
Aqualung
Cross-Eyed Mary
Cheap Day Return
Mother Goose
Wond'ring Aloud
Up To Me
Side 2
My God
Hymn 43
Slipstream
Locomotive Breath
Wind-Up
Jethro Tull vehemently deny that this is a concept album, so, as a public service let me offer some pointers to any bands starting out as to how to avoid this kind of confusion.
1. Do not include references to characters that appear in more than one song.
2. Do not have those characters interacting with each other
3. Do not give titles to each side of your album, this can be misconstrued as an indication that there is an underlying theme.
4. Do not thematically link the songs on each side so that they reinforce the misapprehension that the listener might suffer from point 3.
5. Do not ply your trade in the early seventies when concept albums were the done thing (admittedly this is quite an easy one to avoid in 2016).
6. Do not follow up your album with another one which does all of these things again and which you say is a parody of a concept album.
By following these simple steps, embarrassment can be easily avoided. Unfortunately JT make every one of these schoolboy errors. However, why they should disown the CA tag is beyond me. Is it a kind of inverted snobbery on Anderson's part - "We're not up ourselves like everyone else"? Even if it wasn't intended, there's no shame in admitting that you wanted a degree of coherence to feature in the album as a whole is there?
One thing that sets Tull apart from their contemporaries is an earthiness bordering on the obscene. The title track itself is a tale of a rather unsavoury down-and-out and is followed by 'Cross-Eyed Mary' about a schoolgirl prostitute. Later on 'Locomotive Breath' pulls no punches as the deconstruction of a man's life is told through the metaphor of a runaway train. They also do a nice line in whimsical balladry with 'Slipstream', 'Mother Goose' and 'Wond'ring Aloud'. Musically I'd say that the Anderson's flute makes way for Barre's guitar, which, despite being Tull's USP, is a good thing, and Anderson still manages to fit in a good blow on 'My God'. The chuggy guitar scratching on 'Hymn 43' is particularly good.
THICK AS A BRICK
Released: 3rd March 1972
SIde 1
Thick as a Brick
Really Don't Mind/See There a Son Is Born
The Poet and the Painter
What Do You Do When the Old Man's Gone?/From the Upper Class
You Curl Your Toes in Fun/Childhood Heroes/Stabs Instrumental
Side 2
Thick as a Brick
See There a Man Is Born/Clear White Circles
Legends and Believe in the Day
Tales of Your Life
Childhood Heroes Reprise
Stung by criticism that Aqualung seemed to be about something, Anderson and company decide to make an intentional concept album as a kind of parody. In interviews he suggests that he was tapping into surreal, British humor of the Monty Python kind. If so, then rather like Shakespeare, the jokes are sometimes quite hard to spot. The underlying idea is that the lyrics are written by an 8 year old prodigy, Gerald Bostock. The album also consists of just one song, which, due to the technological constraints of the time (2 sided LPs) is split into Part 1 and Part 2. Tull's big mistake? They made it all too good. The lyrics are both fatuous and profound, the music is inventive and compelling and the production is really pretty groundbreaking. The 'concept' is so adaptable, that they don't really need to establish any real themes at all. Anderson has returned to Bostock twice in recent solo projects 'Thick As A Brick 2' and 'Homo Erraticus' (I was going to cover his solo albums as part of the whole JT canon, but there are enough to justify a separate posting) although I was surprised to hear snippets that turned up in very similar form in 1987's Crest Of A Knave. On that album, the song 'Mountain Men' contains the line "The poacher and his daughter throw soft shadows on the water in the night" whereas TAAB contains "The poet and the painter casting shadows on the water" sung to the same melody in each. The reference in the later song must have been intentional, but it is difficult to find any discussion of why the link is there on the internet. Wikipedia constantly refers to Jethro Tull as a progressive rock band. I'm inclined to disagree, but they do give it some musical complexity here with the keyboard breaks in particular reminding me of Tony Banks in same-era Genesis. In addition, Anderson uses overlaid vocals to produce a more echoey, choral effect, and the transitions from muddy to sparkling sound clarity is sometimes startling.
Of course, back in those days, album packaging ruses were all the rage. Zips, scratch n' sniff, rotating discs under the outer cover, anything went. Jethro Tull have always been quite good on packaging, particularly early on, but this took the form of a full blown newspaper,"The St Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser" wrapped around it with full coverage of Bostock and his controversial entry into a local poetry competition.
A PASSION PLAY
Released: 13th July 1973
Side 1
Act 1 - Ronnie Pilgrim's Funeral
Act 2 - The Memory Bank
Side 2
Interlude - The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles
Act 3 - The Business Office of G Oddie and Son
Act 4 - Magus Perde's Drawing Room At Midnight
It's great, apart from a monumentally poor artistic decision halfway through. If you've heard it I hope you will realize that I am referring to 'The Story Of The Hare That Lost His Spectacles'. Let's get that out of the way first. Bassist Jeffrey Hammond narrates in a kind of mannered uber-Alan Bennett voice. The tale is vaguely Winnie the Pooh (Owl and Kangaroo feature), vaguely Alice in Wonderland and vaguely Beatrix Potter. Hammond pronounces it "Speck-tack-kulls" and it is possibly the worst thing I've yet heard when creating these posts. Which is a shame, because the rest of it could challenge The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway for scope and ambition.
If Tull reckoned that Aqualung was just a collection of songs, and Thick As A Brick was a piss-taking response to the reception that Aqualung got, then A Passion Play sees them wholeheartedly embracing their status as the conceptualists-du-jour. Just like Lamb, the story is a journey through a fantastical world, this time the afterlife of Ronnie Pilgrim. He takes in heaven and hell and finds neither to his taste. For me the highlight of the album is the confrontation with Lucifer "the overseer of the year". From the grunts like someone has punched Anderson in the solar plexus to the coruscating organ chords, 'Overseer Overture' could be the best thing they ever did - and I happen to believe that they achieved some fairly remarkable stuff over the years.
The cover on this one always put me off. I still can't quite figure it out. It's a monochrome picture of a prostrate ballerina in a theatre right? It looked like a classical album, which can daunt a young man.
WAR CHILD
Released: 14th October 1974
Side 1
War Child
Queen And Country
Ladies
Back-Door Angels
Sealion
Side 2
Skating Away (On The Thin Ice Of A New Day)
Bungle In the Jungle
Only Solitaire
The Third Hoorah
Two Fingers
The online literature suggests that this particular child had a difficult birth, and it does come across as more of a Frankenstein creation than the product of an act of love. There appears to be obvious trimmings from A Passion Play, which is a mystery in itself when you consider 'Hare' made the cut on that album. It seems disjointed and repetitive, particularly in the opening tracks. But it does improve and the better-known tracks on side 2, 'Skating Away' and 'Bungle In The Jungle' are worthy additions to any album. I didn't mind Sealion either. No-one is listed as playing the uilleann pipes but if not then they find a way of mimicking them quite well with a synthesiser. 'Two Fingers' is a reworking of 'Lick Your Fingers Clean' from the Aqualung recording sessions. The little spoken parts are slightly annoying. I don't even like the artwork. It looks pretty amateurish.
MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY
Released: 5th September 1975
Side 1
Minstrel In The Gallery
Cold Wind To Valhalla
Black Satin Dancer
Requiem
Side 2
One White Duck/010 = Nothing At All
Baker St. Muse
Pig Me and The Whore
Nice Little Tune
Crash Barrier Waltzer
Mother England Reverie
Grace
Schizophrenia rules. Tull can't decide if they are a folk band or a heavy rock band. Their solution? Make the title track an exercise in doing the same song twice in either style. Of course it's a bit more complex and clever than that, but the title track, 'Minstrel In The Gallery' is essentially a run through in a mock-mediaeval style, followed by identical lyrics, played as if they were Free. In a way it sums up Jethro Tull nicely.
Their artwork and general musical style often suggests rustic olde-Englishness, but Anderson's voice and Barre's guitar easily achieve a hard rock edge. In my slow progress toward making this all a little more informed (and, let's be honest, to boost the blog's stats), I have recently ventured onto some of the fan forums to get the insider's line on these albums. Yes and ELO have both been very welcoming, but Floyd and the Beatles are tougher nuts to crack. Since I am embroiled in Jethro Tull it gives me an opportunity to sound their fans out about what I should look for. 'One White Duck' seems to be the favourite on this one. I like 'Black Satin Dancer', it suggests some of the later tracks that I like, such as 'Budapest'. Those gentle, reflective acoustic guitar ditties are back too with 'Requiem', 'One White Duck/010 = Nothing At All' and the pleasingly short 'Grace'. Centrepiece of Side 2 is 'over 16 minutes of 'Baker St. Muse' medley. Not sure to be honest. It's disjointed, which is always a danger with a medley. 'Summerday Sands' is included as a bonus track on the Spotify version, and it ain'y half like 'Skating Away’
TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL: TOO YOUNG TO DIE!
Released: 23rd April 1976
Side 1
Quizz Kid
Crazed Institution
Salamander
Taxi Grab
From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser
Side 2
Bad Eyed And Loveless
Big Dipper
Too Old To Rock And Roll: Too Young To Die
Pied Piper
The Chequered Flag (Dead Or Alive)
Anderson seems to attack this album with an astonishing level of commitment and confidence. Yet another concept album, and at the more comprehensible end of that spectrum too. His protagonist, Ray Lomas, is a rocker past his sell-by date, punk is coming and he's becoming obsolete. The video of the title track is quite a production (rather like the song) and features Anderson and the band playing the lascivious old geezers against a young punkette. It's also notable for some terrible miming, especially as they sing the chorus while slurping from teacups.
Musically they run a thread of a simple pizzicato hook throughout. The opening three tracks set the pace for the rest of the album, 'Quizz Kid' and 'Crazed Institution' are good catchy songs and Salamander returns to the acoustic style of 'Fat Man' (although not with the South Asian instruments) and 'Skating Away'. There's a sad tone to 'From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser'.
I have a theory that Fish had the opening two lines of 'Big Dipper' on his mind when he was writing Marillion's Misplaced Childhood, mist rolling in and trains all feature in 'Bitter Suite'. That last bit of 'Too Old....' where they abruptly change the song from a slow ballad to a quick rocker really shouldn't work, but it does. Back to the video and the band transform into their modern personas for that part, which unfortunately in Anderson's case means some kind of mock-mediaeval tunic, jodhpurs and presumably a cuke down the pants. Not sure about the cover. Very much of it's time I suppose. Next up, some kitchen prose and gutter rhymes.
SONGS FROM THE WOOD
Released: 11th February 1977
Side 1
Songs From The Wood
Jack In The Green
Cup Of Wonder
Hunting Girl
Ring Out Solstice Bells
Side 2
Velvet Green
The Whistler
Pibroch (Cap In Hand)
Fire At Midnight
With a hey-nonny-nonny Jethro Tull embrace their folky sensibilities, albeit with the hard rock edge of Barre's guitar. I'm going to say that this marks the start of mid-period JT, which runs from here to Broadsword And The Beast. My worry is that although these albums are good (not sure about A), they won't represent much progression, but we'll see.
The opening title track has a kind of monastic echo to some of the lines, which runs perilously close to being a bit crap but just stays on the right side of quirky. Tull like a Christmas song, and have released an entire Christmas album, but their definitive effort in the genre, the one that might just get into a top 50 Christmas songs countdown, is 'Ring Out Solstice Bells', which is, of course, thematically leaning more toward the pagan than the Christian. Some very complicated handclapping is involved, but they do capture a certain festive feel.
'The Whistler' was a single and it has an interesting verse structure where Anderson's vocal almost overlaps the end of one line with the start of the next. It does live up to the title too. His dexterity on the flute and whistles is plain to hear. 'Pibroch (Cap In Hand)' is supposed to start with Barre's guitar imitating the bagpipes, but, alas, it seems that Cacophonix has leapt from the pages of Goscinny and Uderzo's latest work instead. In fact the whole song is a bit of a mess and spoils an otherwise great album.
The cover photo is rather literal, Anderson, well, in the wood. Being rustic. And all that.
HEAVY HORSES
Released: 21st April 1978
Side 1
...And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps
Acres Wild
No Lullaby
Moths
Journeyman
Side 2
Rover
One Brown Mouse
Heavy Horses
Weathercock
More folky rock. I've listened to this quite a number of times and enjoyed it a lot. When it's good ('Moths', 'Heavy Horses', 'Rover') it's great. Anderson is definitely tending toward nature and the rural here and it's an astonishingly expressive album. The style foreshadows the next album Stormwatch, which for various reasons is one of my favorites and the accepted wisdom is that Songs From The Wood, Heavy Horses and Stormwatch form a trilogy of folk-rock albums.
To my mind Tull never fully deviated from the formula after this, but I can see that later albums relied less on traditional instruments. '...And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps' has similarities to 'North Sea Oil' on Stormwatch.
The title track shows genius in the plodding tempo that reflects the subject matter and the jump into the sparkling fiddle jig that characterises the middle section. With 'Moths' they use the fluttering flute to represent the subject matter and 'Rover' harnesses the folk stylings into more of a rock song
STORMWATCH
Released 14th September 1979
Side 1
North Sea Oil
Orion
Home
Dark Ages
Warm Sporran
Side 2
Something's On The Move
Old Ghosts
Dun Ringill
Flying Dutchman
Elegy
We're going back to the mezzanine floor of Tamworth Public Library. This was one of the first albums I took out and certainly the first Jethro Tull album. I was attracted by the two word, 3 syllable name I think, but I was not yet ready for Uriah Heep or Amon Duul (and indeed, I don't think I ever will be). They won me over first time I played it. It doesn't start promisingly though. I always found the opening line of North Sea Oil to be a bit clunky. "Black and viscous, bound to cure blue lethargy", but in the end that is part of its charm.
Allegedly this is the third of the 'folk trilogy', but by now they are moving remorselessly into heavy rock. In fact you have to wonder that my old standby of rock cliché - Spinal Tap wasn't based almost entirely on the style of music on Stormwatch. 'Orion' and 'Dark Ages' in particular are very Tappish. But who cares? I love it all. 'Dark Ages' in particular is a magnificent mish-mash of doomy lyrics, and epic musical arrangements. I'm sure it's all very satirical, but Anderson makes it too good a musical experience to worry about what he's singing.
'Home' is a nice piece of introspection and 'Warm Sporran' is a rather oddly pleasing instrumental, somewhere between a Scottish march-time reel and a Gregorian chant. By the time we get to 'Something On The Move' we have a full on rock guitar riff perfectly knitting with the percussion of the drums and Anderson's flute.
Probably my favourite track on the album, and possibly my favourite Tull song of all, is 'Dun Ringill'. When reminiscing about student days before Christmas I discovered a performance on You Tube at the Sunderland Empire in 1990, a performance I actually attended. The opening words are spoken by BBC Breakfast Time weatherman Francis Wilson, who used to diffidently tell us that there was 'haar' coming in off the North Sea. As far as I recall, haar is kind of mizzly, crappy fog that suits the North-East coast of England down to a T. I love the line "A concert of Kings, as the white sea snaps" Don't know why, just beautifully lyrical.
There are hints of 'Locomotive Breath' in the opening to 'Flying Dutchman' but it never develops into the headlong frenzy of that song. The bonus tracks on Spotify includes 'Kelpie', which I could have sworn was on the original album, but Wikipedia says no. It was on the 20 Years Of.. collection, so maybe I know it from there. The artwork always made me think it was a 3-D picture and you needed a pair of cardboard specs to see it properly.
A
Released: 29th Augist 1980
Side 1
Crossfire
Flyingdale Flyer
Working John, Working Joe
Black Sunday
Side 2
Protect and Survive
Batteries Not Included
Uniform
4WD (Low Ratio)
The Pine Marten's Jig
And Further On
It didn’t look promising. Rubbish title and rubbish artwork. Also the background reading suggests that this is one of those ‘contractual obligation’ albums that rarely produce something worthwhile. There is a marked stylistic shift as Tull embrace the electronic revolution of the early eighties. Ask Neil Young fans if they think Transformer Man marked the zenith of his achievement. But against the odds this ranks as ‘fairly outstanding’ on the Rock Odyssey scale.
What got me onside was ‘Black Sunday’. Let me take you on a journey through how my mind occasionally works, especially when listening to a song that I really enjoy. ‘Black Sunday’ is a fairly epic affair. You could definitely see it being used in a musical (and Anderson has produced one based on the life of the band’s eponymous agricultural inventor which might well feature it for all I know). But since it is essentially a Paso Doble, I find myself fantasising about the upcoming performance of ex hopeless shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, but actually seemingly decent bloke, Ed Balls on Strictly Come Dancing. I would stage it with Balls in city gent rig, bowler hat and umbrella and all, while his unfortunate partner is done up to suggest his broadsheet newspaper (in lieu of a cloak motif) whom Ed would manhandle around the dancefloor. Never mind the obligatory one minute thirty seconds performance either, I’d get Ed putting in the full six and a half minutes. The lyrical themes of disillusionment with the modern world would work well too.
For the rest of it, there’s plenty more modern day angst to keep you going. ‘Protect And Survive’ reminds us that if you were a teenager at the time, you thought there was a decent chance you’d soon be nuked into oblivion. Some of the electronic music is a bit tinny and of its time but it’s a much better album than I had any right to expect
THE BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST
Released: 9th April 1982
Side 1
Beastie
Clasp
Fallen On Hard Times
Flying Colours
Slow Marching Band
Side 2
Broadsword
Pussy Willow
Watching Me, Watching You
Seal Driver
Cheerio
As I worked my way through Tull albums on the mezzanine floor of Tamworth Public library, none had a more appealing cover to an early-teenage boy than Broadsword And The Beast. Anderson represents himself as some kind of malevolent gnome, clutching the titular weapon. By this age I was into epic fantasy and had read Lord Of The Rings at least twice. The content is very appealing to that mindset too. All macho, epic stuff. Anderson was always looking for an excuse to dress up in quasi-mediaeval garb on stage and this provides plenty of opportunity.
I’ve always assumed that the opening ‘Beastie’ is about fear and depression. I used to play this album in advance of my ‘O’Level exams. I found ‘Beastie’ (“Stare that Beastie in the face and really give him hell”), ‘Broadsword’ (“Bring me my Broadsword and clear understanding”) and ‘Slow Marching Band’ (“Walk on slowly, and keep on going”) very inspiring as ways of convincing me to have no fear and have confidence in myself (self-confidence had ebbed away during my time at secondary school).
Tull have moved largely away from the more keyboard/electronic-led sound of ‘A’ (although ‘Watching You, Watching Me’ bucks the trend), this is definitely a rock album, which might explain the style of the cover, which does mirror the kind of stuff Iron Maiden and co were putting on their albums. On ‘Broadsword’ it took me a long time to work out that instead of “Childless Man”, Anderson was singing “Talisman”, either sort of makes sense in context although “Talisman” is clearly the right one. ‘Pussy Willow’ might be quite rude. I’m not sure. And ‘Seal Driver’ is a great fat lump of pompous rock. Nothing wrong with that though. It all ends with the low-key (and short) ‘Cheerio’.
As hinted above, this is an important album from my youth, and it still sounds great.
UNDER WRAPS
Released: 7th September 1984
Side 1
Lap Of Luxury
Under Wraps #1
European Legacy
Later, That Same Evening
Saboteur
Radio Free Moscow
Side 2
Nobody's Car
Heat
Under Wraps #2
Paparazzi
Apogee
I gave it a fair crack of the whip, I really did. But it's just not very good. I even spotted its lower quality when I was a teenager. Tull seem utterly confused on what they are all about and the album is a kind of Frankenstein creation of substandard versions of their contemporaries. The admittedly reasonably catchy 'Lap Of Luxury' comes on like ZZ Top and there are sprinkles of 90215 era Yes, XTC and possibly even Ultravox. By the time they get to 'Heat' they even chuck in a rip off of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain'. Anderson is too enamoured of all these new toys that he's just got his hands on, and the flute jars against the bleeps and artificial snares. Still, apparently Martin Barre quite likes it, so maybe I just don't get it.
Funnily enough it's not massively dissimilar in style to the next album Crest of A Knave, which is one of my favourites, but I think they'd got a better grip on the balance between the new technology and the more traditional instruments by then. Some of the vocal is annoying too. On 'Saboteur' Anderson repeats "Don't wanna be no saboteur" but it just transforms into "Don't want a Beano Saboteur"
Themes are still quite Cold War-ish, most overtly on 'Radio Free Moscow' in which Anderson's mid-atlantic accent fails to settle on "Moss-cow" or "Moss-ko". (I'm sure I don't need to tell American readers which is correct). 'Under Wraps #2' is probably the most traditionally Tull track on the album and therefore the best of a bad bunch.
I never liked the artwork either, too corporate. That 'Tull' logo is awful.
CREST OF A KNAVE
Released: 7th September 1987
Side 1
Steel Monkey
Farm On The Freeway
Jump Start
Said She Was A Dancer
Dogs In The Midwinter
Side 2
Budapest
Mountain Men
The Waking Edge
Raising Steam
I came to this at the peak of my interest in Jethro Tull. It was probably the first album of theirs that I heard on release. At the time there was much hoo-ha about the band celebrating 20 years in the business. These days even Take That have clocked up 26, but back in 1987, a band that started in the mid-sixties and were still around was enough of a rarity to be remarkable. There were documentaries and everything, including one that focussed on Ian Anderson on his estate on Skye.
I think one of the things I like about Crest Of A Knave is that there is a real coherence about the themes, even though they are quite diverse (the plight of the modern farmer/temptations of being on tour/the West Highlands). Anderson has been criticized a bit for his Knoppfler-esque vocal, which was at least partly due to a recent illness. It was alarming at the time that he appeared to be laying it on quite thick, but listening to it again, I actually find it less obvious than back then, probably because you never hear Mark Knoppfler these days.
The opening track and single won the grammy for best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, which probably tells you more about the state of Metal in 1987 than it does about Tull's style at the time (mind you, it did beat 'And Justice For All'). But 'Steel Monkey' is a great song, I have it on 12" single somewhere. Monkeys were big in the mid 80's. Peter Gabriel shocked his, Warren Zevon just wanted you to leave his alone and Twelfth Night had a blue powder one (but perhaps only I remember them).
I've noted on Thick As A Brick that the lyrics to Mountain Men bear striking similarities to that album in places. 'Said She Was A Dancer' and 'Budapest' always felt like a pair of companion songs, although the sense of Anderson acting like a randy old goat when confronted by lithe Eastern European women is hard to shake off.
'Dogs In The Midwinter' is a great song, but the lyrics are several metaphors too far. East-West tension is my best guess. The groany vocal is at its worst in the closing 'The Waking Edge', but like the rest of the album, time has been kind to it. Definitely in my top three.
ROCK ISLAND
Released: 21st August 1989
Side 1
Kissing Willie
The Rattlesnake Trail
Ears Of Tin
Undressed To Kill
Rock Island
Side 2
Heavy Water
Another Christmas Song
The Whaler's Dues
Big Riff and Mando
Strange Avenues
After the rather noble and romantic notions of Crest Of A Knave, Tull return to the gutter on Rock Island. It could almost be a sequel to Aqualung, with 'Kissing Willie' and 'Undressed To Kill' being direct descendants of 'Cross Eyed Mary' in their unsavouriness. In fact Wikipedia tells me that Anderson himself sees the closing 'Strange Avenues' being set in the Aqualung world (but remember, it's still not a concept album). "Nice girl but a bad girl's better' slurps Anderson, whose voice has returned to normal service.
Part of his heart remains in the Highlands as he references Glen Shiel and Kintail on 'Ears Of Tin' and there's a few watery themes of islands and whale hunting. Musically it's not much different from Crest Of A Knave, the title track and 'Heavy Water' would have slotted onto that album without difficulty. But there is an unexpected delight in 'Another Christmas Song' (since they'd already done 'A Christmas Song') in which you can almost smell the mulled wine and the flute rings out like a solstice bell. 'Big Riff and Mando' is the embellished tale of the theft of Barre's Mandolin which was later returned (Anderson has helpfully, and somewhat uncharacteristically provided quite lucid explanations of all these songs as part of the re-mastered reissue in 2006. Where's the fun in that?).
Nice cover too, emphasising the nautical bent.
CATFISH RISING
Released: 2nd September 1991
This Is Not Love
Occasional Demons
Roll Yer Own
Rocks On The Road
Sparrow On The Schoolyard Wall
Thinking Around Corners
Still Loving You Tonight
Doctor To My Disease
Like A Tall Thin Girl
White Innocence
Sleeping With The Dog
Gold Tipped Boots, Black Jacket and Tie
Weirdly, despite never owning this, I seem to know it quite well, but can't quite recollect how this has come to pass. I can only assume that since it's release coincides with a period in my life when I was neither a student nor gainfully employed, and therefore living at home with my parents, I must have once again got it out of Tamworth record library. Also, there is an immediacy to the songs, at least the first few, and so they probably imprinted quite quickly during the month's loan period. I have to tell you, dear reader, that the Philistines that share my life have not expressed unalloyed pleasure at being exposed to the entire back catalogue of Anderson, Barre, Pegg and co, but even Mrs. M, on hearing the first three tracks on this, declared it not completely awful.
The opening 'This Is Not Love' contains an irritating earworm reminding me of something that I just cannot place. The nearest I can suggest is (inevitably) part of 'Badlands' by Bruce, but that's not really it either. 'Occasional Demons' continues in the catchy groove. I always surmised that 'Roll Your Own' was less about Rizlas and rough shag and rather more about another kind of (solo) shag. But it's a nice little acoustic blues anyway and provides a break from the light-heavyweight rock that Tull have slipped into on the past three albums.
I like 'Rocks On The Road' but it doesn't offer much that Crest or Rock Island hadn't already achieved. Same with 'White Innocence', which is a rehash of 'Budapest'.There's a rather jolly bass guitar part to the mischievously folky 'Thinking Around Corners' and I even enjoyed the Gary Moore mimicry on 'Still Loving You Tonight'. 'Doctor To My Disease' starts like the theme to Casino Royale that Chris Cornell did, which reinforces my point about Tull tending toward well-executed but not really groundbreaking rock music. There is still a lot of lyrical spikiness however. Most interesting track on the album for me is easily 'Like A Tall Thin Girl' which seems a clear juxtaposition to 'Fat Man' all those years ago on Stand Up. There are references to it and it's musically similar. I must be right mustn't I? Also, the slow blues of 'Sleeping With The Dog' could be off This Was. Finally, 'Gold Tipped Boots, Black Jacket and Tie' has the advantage of an intriguing title but doesn't really deliver. Another good piece of artwork again. They're on a roll.
Original track listing is hard to pin down. This is the order on Spotify, but Wikipedia sticks 'Roll Yer Own' on Side 2, which doesn't seem right to me or my memory.
ROOTS TO BRANCHES
Released: 4th September 1995
Roots To Branches
Rare And Precious Chain
Out Of The Noise
This Free Will
Valley
Dangerous Veils
Beside Myself
Wounded, Old And Treacherous
At Last Forever
Stuck In The August Rain
Another Harry's Bar
One more after this and I have to admit to flagging a little of late, not more than one a week recently. Not for lack of quality or interest though, and this is no exception. This is very coherent as a single musical piece. It's very Seventies and proggy, although it occasionally crosses the line into jazz, and no-one wants that. Anderson has been off to Cairo, wandered around the souk and done a beginners course in snake charming to advantageous effect on the opening two tracks.
The prog stylings kick in heavily on 'Dangerous Veils', especially toward the end of the track. On 'Wounded, Old And Treacherous' IA speaks the lyric in a rather arch fashion and it gets a bit chaotic at the end. 'At Last Forever' is what I consider trad Tull, by which I mean it fits into the Stormwatch/Broadsword period, where I first came in. 'Stuck In The August Rain' reminds me a little of 'From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser'. Dire Straits 'Your Latest Trick'. At the end the mumbling, headbanded ghost of Mark Knopfler appears again at Anderson's shoulder and the closing 'Another Harry's Bar' is reminiscent of 'Your Latest Trick' Artwork still going well too.
J-TULL DOT COM
Released: 23rd August 1999
Spiral
Dot Com
Awol
Nothing @ All
Wicked Windows
Hunt By Numbers
Hot Mango Flush
El Nino
Black Mamba
Mango Surprise
Bends Like A Willow
Far Alaska
The Dog Ear Years
A Giif Of Roses
Here's a rule that seems to hold true. The worse the album art and title, the better the Tull album. At least that's true for this and 'A'. The cover is almost literally diabolical and the name only has the redeeming feature of being seemingly ahead of its time. Did we have dotcoms in 1999? Presumably so, Anderson and Co have many talents, but precognition is not one of them. However the content is top-notch and that's unusual for a last album (I'm not counting the Christmas album, but I may add it during the festive season), usually these types of bands follow a law of diminishing returns at the fag-end of their recording careers.
In 'Dot Com' Anderson even seems to be trying to emulate Kate Bush and employs something of a Kate soundy-likey on backing vocal. Somewhere between that and Carnatic singing anyway. But it's certainly very satisfying. Then on 'Awol' they go all Gabriel-era Genesis with parts that sound very much like 'The Fountain Of Salmacis', 'Wicked Windows' harks back to the Minstrel-era folk rock and it feels lovingly crafted. Next they rub salt into the Grammy shaped wound they inflicted on Metallica by doing a decent pastiche called 'Hunt By Numbers'. You could almost describe 'Hot Mango Flush' as a rap, insofar as Anderson delivers it rather like a beat poem. He reprises the atmosphere of a Fry's Turkish Delight advert on 'El Nino' but this is rather oddly but effectively crossed with a another unique Tull-style take on thrash metal. There's a bit of Zep's 'Kashmir' about 'Black Mamba', it's all doomy crashing strings. There's a minor misstep on 'Far Alaska' which gets a bit messy in the middle. Just before the finale of 'A Gift Of Roses' we get flung back almost to the start of the story. 'The Dog Ear Years' wouldn't be out of place on 'Stand Up or Benefit. 'A Gift Of Roses' feels like Anderson half suspects this is the end of the last studio album, there's one or two nods to the past such as mentions of a passion play.
There's a hidden track if you can be bothered. They were the done thing in the late nineties. Anderson introduces the title track from his new solo album 'The Secret Language Of Birds'. It's very nice, but frankly I need a break. His solo albums are another odyssey for another year.
THE ZEALOT GENE
Released: 28th January 2022
Mrs. Tibbets
Jacob's Tales
Mine Is the Mountain
The Zealot Gene
Shoshana Sleeping
Sad City Sisters
Barren Beth, Wild Desert John
The Betrayal of Joshua Kynde
Where Did Saturday Go?
Three Loves, Three
In Brief Visitation
The Fisherman of Ephesus
Funnily enough, the release of this coincided approximately with the 45th anniversary of Songs From The Wood, and the artwork got me thinking that Anderson does have a tendency to present himself in goblin-like fashion on Tull album covers. The most extreme example would be The Boradsword and The Beast, but there's a certain demonic quality to his picture on this one.
It didn't really grab me on first hearing, but after 3 or 4 listens of this it settled in as solid, classic Tull. One suspects he might have even had thoughts of making some kind of impact on the Christmas market, there are a couple of songs that make festive references, and in general he calls on biblical themes. Mrs. Tibbets is not about a cat, but the mother of the pilot of the Enola Gay, and some of it feels quite dark and menacing (Mine Is The Mountain).
This amounts to an Anderson solo effort in many ways, it's an all-new band with not even Martin Barre asked to come back, probably due to the circumstances of the band's split in 2012, but it does sound more like the band of old than, say, Crest Of A Knave, which seemed to be entirely Anderson's baby.
RökFlöte
Released: 21st April 2023
Voluspo
Ginnungagap
Allfather
The Feathered Consort
Hammer on Hammer
Wolf Unchained
The Perfect One
Trickster (And the Mistletoe)
Cornucopia
The Navigators
Guardian's Watch
Ithavoll
So it seems that The Zealot Gene actually represented a rebirth, a second coming if you will, of Jethro Tull under the sole stewardship of Ian Anderson. Not only did this surface just over a year later, but there’s another one coming imminently. So I’d better get my skates on.
This may be the epitome of wherever Anderson saw himself going all those years ago. An album of rock flute (RökFlöte, do you see?) instrumentals that morphed into a concept album about Norse mythology. So now we have Anderson the ancient Skald, quavering on about the Allfather, Hammers, Wolves and so on. Of course I’m loving it. This is what rock music should be all about, heroic obsessions that span effortlessly from teenage boys, through disillusioned middle aged men to old farts. The great thing about Anderson tackling this stuff and putting the flute to the fore is that it’s about the most organic of all instruments, needing just a pair of lungs and a tube, so it kind of feels authentic, and putting screaming electric guitar all over it just helps us remember that this was just the done thing in the mid-seventies.
His voice is in good nick. He still has that odd westcountry burr that apparently bears no relation to anywhere he’s ever lived. But hey, it’s folk rock and that lot all sing from somewhere in their body other than their lungs. It’s calling back again to that supposed trilogy of folk-rock albums: Songs from the Wood/Heavy Horses/Stormwatch and could have been the follow up when you consider the tone of the whole thing.
So this is all very satisfying. The next to come along will be ‘Curious Ruminant’