Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull were one of the most original English bands of the Seventies. The band is still active today, but their masterpiece almost certainly remains their fourth album, released in 1971. The cover, among the most famous and recognizable in rock history, if not among the most beautiful, depicts a tramp bearing the features of frontman Ian Anderson, flautist and singer. "Aqualung" - the name of the album, its opening track and the character on the cover - means "breathing apparatus". The title was chosen with the wheezing sound in mind that, in Anderson's imagination, the tramp let out with every breath.

The resemblance between Aqualung and its chief creator, Anderson, led many to assume it was an autobiographical concept album, but that isn't the case. The Jethro Tull frontman was quick to point out that "he had never been a beggar" and that the likeness to his own features was more of a spur-of-the-moment idea than anything else. In fact, the album's lyrics tackle various themes, with two central threads running through it: the condition of the marginalized and, especially on side two, the relationship between man and religion.

The explosive mixture of hard rock, British folk, classical instrumentation and a distinctive tendency to rhythmically distort the song form make "Aqualung" the most musically varied and well-balanced record in the band's catalogue, in some ways close to Steve Winwood's Traffic, but with a sound pulled more toward electric distortion and a marked taste for riffs over improvisation. That very freedom in using "square" as well as irregular rhythms is one of the most fascinating aspects of Jethro Tull's early work, bringing them close to prog-rock while still steering clear of the ambitious overstructuring that would later link them to so many historic progressive bands – a tendency that would perhaps reach its peak with 1973's "A Passion Play". Introducing unusual rhythms into the closed structure of the rock song and the blues (something Chicago had already widely experimented with on their 1969 "Chicago Transit Authority") rather than into the open structure of the "suite" (as was typical of Soft Machine or King Crimson and the whole of English progressive rock) does wonders for the freshness of the sound on Jethro Tull's early albums.

It opens with the now-legendary distorted riff of the title track, punctuated by moments of inspired silence. "Aqualung" carries on propelled by Anderson's stentorian, nasal voice, capable of remarkable shifts in register, and masterful at balancing the guitar melody with glissandi and sudden bursts of roughness, as it paints a bleak urban vignette, with Aqualung sitting alone in the park: "Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent". The tempo abruptly halves midway through the song, ushering in the band's acoustic side and adding a dramatic effect. Next comes "Cross-Eyed Mary", the story of a "Robin Hood prostitute" who entertains wealthy men only to give the money to the poor. Introduced by a swelling little march for flute and keyboards, Jethro Tull's hard rock here rests on the guitar-and-piano duet that is one of the most distinctive traits of their sound. The famous riff of the chorus, doubled by the bass, driving and swinging, would make the track one of the most acclaimed in their live shows.

The three tracks that follow, "Cheap Day Return", "Mother Goose" and "Wond'ring Aloud", form an acoustic triptych of rare delicacy: the first is a touching reflection by Anderson on "how the nurse might be treating his frail old father", essentially a solo piece for acoustic guitar, enriched by an almost spoken vocal delivery and a few delicate flute touches in the background. In "Mother Goose" Aqualung himself takes the mic to recount a slice of his day, amid threats, regrets and old friends. The acoustic guitar dominates the scene, sketching out a rhythm in 3 and 5/4 with soloing digressions wrapping around Anderson's understated singing. The ever-present flute enriches the interludes. "Wond'ring Aloud" depicts a couple's scene in increasingly melancholy tones – the voice is almost a whisper, the acoustic guitar sounds distant, played with a light touch; violins and piano discreetly enrich the picture.

"Up To Me" raises the tension again and transports us into an atmosphere of medieval England, though the lyrics offer a working-class portrait, all ironic melancholy. The instrumental refrain for flute and guitars is emblematic, and the track is perhaps the shortest possible summary of Jethro Tull's music up to 1971.

The second side opens with "My God", probably Anderson's finest artistic achievement: a track of biting satire on religion as a tool of social control. It's a seven-minute mini-suite with an acoustic introduction, a hard rock theme for piano and guitar, an interlude for solo flute and choral voices, an instrumental refrain with a flute solo, and a return to the main theme. All of it built on an impressive variety of rhythmic patterns (almost all odd, yet adding up to multiples of four) with a constant street-epic atmosphere. The track's strong anti-clerical, anti-religious polemic comes through clearly in lines like "People what have you done/locked Him in His golden cage/Made Him bend to your religion/Him resurrected from the grave". The album was originally meant to be titled "My God" as well, but the title had to be changed because a live bootleg with the same name was already circulating: indeed, Jethro Tull had already been performing the suite live for some time. The central section for choral voices and flute closely recalls the atmosphere of "Carmina Burana" (twelfth-century goliardic Latin poems set to music by Carl Orff in 1937), perhaps topped off with a few pints of beer. The result is "tavern music from medieval Canterbury" that blends beautifully with the track's other compositional and thematic strands – the hard rock epic, the satire of manners, the frontman's posturing as a wandering minstrel.

The track actually marks both a culmination and a starting point in the band's musical journey: on one hand, it achieves the best possible balance of the many sonic strands that had always characterised Jethro Tull's sound; on the other, it sets a precedent for Anderson's growing tendency toward diversified melodies, more complicated arrangements and multiplying structures. These progressive tendencies would decisively shape the albums that immediately followed, from "Thick As A Brick" through to "A Passion Play" and "Minstrel In The Gallery".

The next track is titled "Hymn 43" and continues the satire against religion and its manipulation. It's a straightforward, traditionally structured rock-blues, but placing it right after the seven minutes of "My God" helps ease the tension. It could almost be seen as a "coda" to the previous piece, from which it also borrows themes – a simple closing hymn to end a theatrical performance. The following "Slipstream" is a very brief yet captivating piece for acoustic guitar and voice on the theme of death, enriched by a light touch of violins.

"Locomotive Breath", a genuine live-show staple, sums up the whole of Jethro Tull's hard rock streak, running through all of Anderson's trademark quirks for the genre: a flute intro, a syncopated riff, a marching beat, sudden drum stops, and his theatrical, nasal singing.

The album closes with "Wind Up", a ballad for piano and voice, with a central section played by the full ensemble. The narrating voice recalls childhood and brings back to the fore all the album's thematic threads: the condition of "failures", religion as an instrument of power, the hypocrisies of the English lower middle class and, finally, faith as an intimate, exclusively personal matter, not to be subjected to the rules of the age-old system of the Churches, which go so far as to dictate when and where one should pray: "He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays", or, in a rather free translation: "There's no need to bother him on Sundays". The album closes on exactly this line, over a piano accompaniment.

Jethro Tull's story is not over yet, and although their more recent work can't compete with their Seventies albums, they are certainly among the best-aged bands in rock history. Jethro Tull's live shows remain compelling to this day, and they always include a generous selection of tracks from "Aqualung".

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31/10/2006