Record Box - 5, Jethro Tull

Continuing to examine my old vinyl records before passing them on.

For many years, Jethro Tull was my favourite band by far, as shown by the 18 LPs (albums) in my record box. I was initially attracted in 1969 by the unusual sound of their single ‘Living In The Past’, which I now know was due to the 5/4 (five beats to the bar) time signature, which was and still is unusual in popular music. I went out and bought their LP ‘This Was’ straight away. It did not sound much like the single, having been released a year earlier. 

‘This Was’ had a strong rhythm and blues element, due to the influence of Mick Abrahams who left the band after its release, leaving Ian Anderson as the main creative force. But I liked it enough to buy the second LP, ‘Stand Up’. This was more like the single, with prominent bass, unusual tunes, arrangements and rhythms, and more of an ‘underground’ progressive rock feel. I was also entertained by the band’s unconventional subversive element, and their seventeenth-century rustic appearance (we had learnt at school about the inventor of the seed drill, whose name the band has adopted). One newspaper described them as a mixture of “pop, jazz, and jokery.”

The third LP, ‘Benefit’, hooked me completely. On first hearing the track ‘Play In Time’, I interpreted it as beginning on the beat instead of the up-beat, until it slowly and magically shifted into its correct position. The effect was sensational, but once heard correctly, it was never possible to experience the magic again. 

In Leeds, Roger the PhD student, one of the house sharers, claimed to like only classical music and considered pop and rock to be trivial rubbish. One day in 1972, he came in just as I started to listen to the fifth LP, ‘Thick as A Brick’. He sat down and quietly listened all through, fascinated by the complexities, musical sophistication, variety of themes, time signatures and tempo changes. He declared it to be at last popular music worth listening to. It validated my musical choices because a number of other friends did not like Jethro Tull at all, and thought I had lost my senses. “Ian Anderson sounds like a sheep”, one said. Another friend saw them live and thought ‘Thick as A Brick’ was brilliant, but too difficult for the band to play.  There was a lot in the press about how original they were, but popular classical conductor André Previn dismissed it on a television chat show as nothing not done before. Nowadays ‘Thick as A Brick’ is considered a progressive rock classic. 

Ian Anderson’s lyrics were also clever and original. The BBC radio presenter Alan Freeman was an admirer. I remember him drawing attention to the song ‘Weathercock’ on his Sunday afternoon programme in 1978 when the folk-rock LP ‘Heavy Horses’ came out. Does the weather cock reflect or determine the weather?  

        Good morning weathercock, how’d you fare last night?
        Did the cold wind bite you, did you face up to the fright?
        When the leaves spin from October and whip around your tail
        Did you shake from the blast and did you shiver through the gale?

        And give us direction, the best of goodwill
        Put us in touch with your fair winds
        Sing to us softly, hum evening’s song
        Tell us what the blacksmith has done for you

        Do you simply reflect changes in the patterns of the sky?
        Or is it true to say the weather heeds the twinkle in your eye?
        Do you fight the rush of winter? Do you hold snowflakes at bay?
        Do you lift the dawn sun from the fields and help him on his way?

        Good morning weathercock, make this day bright
        Put us in touch with your fair winds
        Sing to us softly, hum evening’s song
        Point the way to better days, we can share with you

In this YouTube video of a live performance in 2005, Anderson’s flute, the musicianship of the other band members at that time, the way the track builds to the instrumental section at the end, and the overall arrangement, remind us just how good they were. 

I bought just about every vinyl LP for twenty years, and then one on cassette tape. I saw them play live in Berlin in early 1982 when they played new tracks from ‘The Broadsword and the Beast’. I wondered what the Anglo-Saxon runes were on the cover, and spent ages painstakingly decoding them, guided by letter frequency. They spell out the verse of the title song, “I see a dark sail on the horizon, set under a black cloud that hides the sun. Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding. Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman.”

A few years later, around 1990, tied up by work and family, I stopped buying or listening much to music at all. More recently, I bought two DVDs of Jethro Tull performances, and interviews with Ian Anderson and other band members. It dismayed me how Ian Anderson’s subversive humour had been replaced by an entitled pompousness. Perhaps it had already started by 1985 when he recorded the LP ‘A Classic Case’ in which the band played their music with the London Symphony Orchestra. It must be difficult not to let all that success go to your head. 

As well as the LPs, I have the 1971 EP, ‘Life Is A Long Song’, (“But the tune ends too soon for us all”). So true. A funeral tune, perhaps.  

It would be difficult to choose a favourite track, but the title track ‘Heavy Horses’ would be a good contender. I love this nostalgically sentimental video with (after 70 seconds) its images of the beautiful animals that used to work our lands. I also like the less well-known but in some ways similar title track ‘Too Old To Rock And Roll, Too Young To Die’. As for Living In The Past, well I suppose that is what I do most of the time in this blog.