Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick, what is it about, is it about anything?

"The poet and the painter, casting shadows on the water, while the sun plays on the infantry returning from the sea." Is Tull's first one-track album more than a random collection of words?

Tim

 

Ian Anderson will tell you, it's up to you.

A Canadian essay, eh.
...nicely summed up...
... If you’ve learned anything from this piece, it should be this – don’t believe that someone else knows better than yourself what you think. P.S. I don’t actually think that an artist, e.g. Ian, consciously decides to write with the detail I’ve expressed above. A true artist “feels” certain emotions and convictions, then writes/paints/composes items which “go with that flow”. It is up to us, the appreciators of this art, to parse the original intentions of the artist and to express them in more rudimentary terms. To make them more accessible to the masses (including myself). A truly good artist will make his/her expressions interpretable in more than one way. My explanation of what I think about TAAB is but a snapshot of my state of mind, when stimulated by the music and lyrics of TAAB at this time. You will have a different snapshot. I will have a different snapshot a few weeks from now. I hope that my snapshot manages to convey a new or heightened sense of meaning to TAAB to you, today. If my snapshot leads you to new interpretations of this piece or parts of it, I’ll be ecstatic. Think.
Paul Tarvydas, 1997 Read much more; TAAB Essay Lyric Analysis – An Essay http://thickasabrick.net/taab-essay/

 

A good effort, thanks.

Tim

 

Then there's world enlightenment and Thick as a Brick meaning.
http://www.world-enlightenment.com/Thick-As-A-Brick-Section-One.htm

 

Nice links, but what do you think?

Tim

 

Anderson's on record as stating the album is a parody/ satire of concept albums common to that era, but it certainly seems to have a serious, sincere side of its own (touching on such subjects as growing up, ethics and morality, love and sex, peace and war, and even reflecting philosophically on the meaning of life, amongst others).

Under the conceit of an epic poem by an eight old year school boy (the fictional Milton Bostick, IIRC) set to music, it has always seemed to me be the observations of life and society set in a small British village in a rural shire, around and by the adult Anderson.

 

I think it's about the rabbit pictured throughout the newspaper and it's quest for a pair of lost spectacles. It was only revealed on the next album, Passion Play, that he did indeed have a spare pair, so not to worry !

 

It's a random collection of words forming a marvelous satire on life.

 

SATIRE being the keyword. Right.

 

Worry? Never! A spare pair, yes. More than two Bricks.
I'll add that you are closer to the hare's truth than you think.

muddy water

 

Very nice, thoughtful analysis there.

 

To me TAAB is about the challenges you face growing up, be they conflicts with your father or older simblings, or expectations of society. The most revealing bits of of the poem are, for me, the Poet and the Painter section. Favorite bit "And the youngest of the family is moving with authority. Building castles by the sea, he dares the tardy tide to wash them all aside". Pressure and expectations push him to haste to build what seems permanent, but may end up as folly.

 

as far as I can tell, it's a profoundly anti-democratic piece of writing. Society, with its petty morals, smashes poor, misunderstood and underappreciated genius boy-flautists.

 

I think it's about 40 minutes long.

"God is the ultimate responsibility" is one thought that intrigues me.

 

I'm not at liberty to go on and on tonight, but I did find it a nice meditation growing up in 'society' and 'power games'. I always thought that TAAB was a continuation of the 'secular' songs theme of Aqualung, while Passion Play elaborated Aqualung's religious questions; I think of those as a trilogy of sorts, with Aqualung as the primer.

 

btw, by "profoundly" I didn't mean "profound," more like "very."

 

Thick As A Brick and the pleasures of the very, very, very long song by Noel Murray November 28, 2012

Read more: http://www.avclub.com/articles/thick-as-a-brick-pleasures-of-the-long-song,89194/
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=albums&thread=2165&page=3#33131
In 1971, British rock band Jethro Tull had its biggest hit worldwide with the LP Aqualung, which critics described as a concept album about religion, even though frontman Ian Anderson denied that the record was meant to be anything like the rock operas and classical-inspired progressive rock suites that had become increasingly popular in the early ’70s—the kind of music that Anderson claimed to despise. So Anderson decided to express his feelings about concept albums and prog-rock via parody, recording an album-length “song” called Thick As A Brick, complete with noodle-y organ solos and poetic passages that (as part of the album’s concept) are put forth as the work of a precocious schoolboy who won a contest. Thick As A Brick sold millions, though its wit is so dry and so subtle that many missed the joke. Over the past 40 years, Thick As A Brick has been slammed by prog-haters as an example of the genre at its most excessive, and embraced by prog-lovers for more or less the same reason.
It’s easy to understand the confusion. Listening to the new 40th-anniversary edition of Thick As A Brick, I was struck anew by how spry the record often is, beginning with an opening three-minute passage that’s less lumbering art-rock than folk-pop ditty (that has frequently been excerpted and played on the radio). But the heaviness does bull its way in, via pounding instrumental sections and extended stretches of impressionistic lyrics that anyone could easily mistake as sincere. Thick As A Brick goes through a lot of changes, but each piece follows organically from what precedes it, such that the record really does feel like a single song and not a suite or medley; and while Anderson’s word salad isn’t meant to tell a story, the lyrics do cohere around a single theme, about how we shouldn’t be so quick to put our faith in pulp heroes or “wise men.” There’s no reason not to take the album/song seriously—and no reason not to find it extremely pretentious, if you’re not into rock bands delivering 44-minute treatises on the human condition.

 

Back in my college days, I was convinced that it was about the Kennedy Family (especially JFK). Of course, my "listening" habits were a bit different then.

 

Little doubt that you know this John but that is actually "God is an overwhelming responsibility" And of course cats are on the upgrade. And the Hipgrave mentioned shortly thereafter I recall is someone Ian, Barrie, John Evan and Jeffrey Hammond knew from school in Blackpool.

 

This should be a good link to one of the higher quality Jethro Tull portals on the net for many years, "Cup of Wonder", which features annotated, re delving into research into the lyrics of Ian Anderson, sections for every one of his compositions, particularly involved in the cases of TAAB and A Passion Play, things like what the silver cord is, where the Fulham Road is, who Biggles was, lots of stuff. To get the annotated lyrics you have to click on the tree thing, you'll figure it out.
http://sd2cx1.webring.org/l/rd?ring=thejethrotullweb;id=34;url=http://www.cupofwonder.com/

 

This is fairly interesting too, though I have not looked at it in years, from another excellent and longstanding, though also long not updated, Tullsite called Tullpress which culls various articles from all the years back to before the beginning. I recall this link takes you into a pictorical play by play of the remarkable live performance from 72. http://www.tullpress.com/brick/brick1.htm

 

Slight nod;
Updated: November 29, 2012

Carpe Weekend: 10 great albums, part one
http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/entert....s-part-one.html
‘Thick as a Brick’

Progressive rock artists often craft intricate songs that can stretch as long as 20 minutes.

In 1972, Jethro Tull took the bombastic tendencies of prog rock to new (and some say intentionally mocking) levels by crafting a single 44-minute song.

It’s the only track on “Thick as a Brick,” and it’s as melodic as it is multifaceted.

Read more: http://jethrotull.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=recent#ixzz2DclgRUHq​

 

I've got one with 4 tracks.

 

I'll bet someone here owns it on 8-track.