Delayed understanding.

It's taken me 40 years to fully realize the brilliance of Aqualung.

I have always thought that Jethro Tull's Aqualung was a fantastic piece of music, but as I was trying to explain lyrics to my son, I had an epiphany. I was telling him how it was story the of an old man who I believed was homeless and how people saw him is being scary and strange but actually that there was more to him than that. When I was young man listening to the song, I recall thinking that the song was about the duality in his personality and that he was both things, a gentle old man and dangerous antisocial wild man to be feared. That he was cruel to strangers because the world was cruel to him, but still had the capacity to connect when shown kindness. Not a bad analysis for a teenager. 

 It is amazing how powerful saying something out loud is because when I explained the song to my son it triggered whole new connections. I guess I had never really questioned my interpretation for all these years, but now I'm pretty sure the song is all about our perception of the homeless and how WE treat them. Whether we see The homeless automatically as dangerous, dirty, creatures to be feared... or as people in need of of help. this more nuanced meaning presented itself to me very clearly, and now its hard for me to hear it as anything other than a social commentary on us and how we treat people who find themselves in this bad situation any assumptions we make about them. The juxtaposition of the song going back and forth from the hard rock and the gentle acoustic treatments represents the two extremes, fear and repulsion, and empathy.

I have to say, has someone who was not always sure after secure financial future, and could easily imagine myself in that situation, this new revelation about the song and its meaning had quite an emotional impact on me. I hope that if given the chance to time travel I would keep my mouth shut and allow my younger self to enjoy his interpretation of the song. After all, there's only one or two people in the world, who really know what the intentions of those lyrics are, and to be honest, if they are anything like me, they may have forgotten by now. But that's the wonderful thing about music, it's means what It means to the person listening to it at the time. I have to try to remember that. So even those people who clearly have never listen to the lyrics of any song in their life, are still getting emotional connection from the music, Even if I feel like they are missing a beautiful treasure. Who knows? Maybe they will discover new meaning in that song 40 years later.

Is "A" Jethro Tull's Worst Album? Hell No I Say!

I visited the iTunes music store to check if I had all the tracks for Jethro Tull's "A" and found it was victim of some pretty hateful reviews. Well feeling that the record didn't deserve that much spite, I decided to pen my own review. Here it is saved for all time in case it gets dropped off iTunes for people rating it unhelpful.

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Not So Fast...

Take another look folks. People afraid of change have been bashing this record for decades but I think it has a lot to offer in the lexicon of Jethro Tull. Several songs influenced me as a young man. "Uniform" weaves a wonderful dark texture that owes a lot to the fantastic playing of Eddie Jobson; what a wonderful counterpoint to everyone's favorite rock flutist. My main issue with the track is that they fade out the stunning riffing at the end too soon.

"Batteries Not Included", "Crossfire", and "Protect And Survive" touched on something in me as a young person and helped cement my love for JT as I was really too young to have appreciated previous records when they came out. "A" was not my introduction to the band as my father was a rock DJ and brought home records for us all the time. But "A" was the first Tull album that I bought with my own money and it sealed the deal. I often wonder if people that don't like this record have really given it a chance. "And Further On", "The Pine Marten's Jig", and "Fylingdale Flyer" all strike me as tracks that are very much in line with the traditional sound of the more classic version of the band. Is it "Thick As A Brick"? no... But these are talented people. Even if they just pass wind into a mic it would likely sound better than 80% of popular music.

I agree that the record company made a mistake releasing it as a Jethro Tull record; chances are that if they had stuck to the original plan, more people would have been able to accept the record for what it is and there may not have been such a backlash.

Synthesizers don't kill albums... closed-minded people that hate them do. heh.

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Seems I am obsessing on music a lot recently, maybe that means I need to get back to writing some of my own. : )