Jethro Tull Appreciation Thread

Don't even get me started on the douches who control the nominating process at the Hall. Unlike some, I don't hate the concept, and I enjoyed the museum, but to deny The Moodies, Tull, Yes, and King Crimson because of your hang-ups with that particular epoch in Rock history pisses me off to no end. And then the admit the (admittedly very influential) completely contrived Sex Pistols, who only released one album before imploding. Don't get me started. Oh wait, you already did!

 

I don't follow who gets inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame because any such process is surely political and not musical. However, if JT and Yes are not in the Hall, that's straight up bad comedy.

 

Luv Tull, and have many of their releases, although you won't catch me listening to Aqualung anymore, thanks to 'classic rock' radio playing it to death. "Songs From the Wood" is my favorite, "Minstrel in the Gallery" number 2.

 

The remasters?

 

Living In The Past was the first LP (had been purchasing 45's up to that point) I ever purchased. I was a Tull fanatic through Heavy Horses. I've never listened to anything past Heavy Horses.

 

Jann Wenner - feh.

I personally think Rock and Roll museums somehow kill the spirit of the thing; I live in Seattle, where Paul Allen built the Experience Music Project as an expensive way to display his collection of $$$$$$$$$$$$$ memorabilia (Hendrix's Woodstock guitar & clothes, Clapton's Brownie Strat, Alan White's crystal drums, etc.); I've been twice, that was enough. Put Rock under glass, make it respectable...doesn't work. Rock lives in people's record collections, scrapbooks, crude fanzines, onstage in sweaty clubs, and in forums like this one.

I'm a little annoyed at the way our childhoods are being sold back to us!

Anyway, Tull, ELP, Yes et. al. are right where they need to be...

Cheers
Bruce

 

-I knew that comment was coming - when I used the remaster's covers.

-Of course you must know I prefer on CD - Stand Up MFSL & Benefit (Box-set)

 

There is NOTHING wrong with those remasters! Don't let anyone sway you if you haven't yet heard them. But this is not about remasters. This is about JETHRO TULL!

Ian inspired me to buy my first capo....he is an incredibly good acoustic player with a very unique style! And as far as electric goes, Martin Barre has humungous balls! His riffery is insanely heavy!

 

Incredible to see those two albums side by side and know they came one after the other. One stroke of amazingness after another! And to know that before that was Stand Up and Benefit....just gives me goosebumps!

 

Positive comments about the remasters are always welcome - I have no problem with the remasters, a treble trim and I'm happy.

 

Many times!

 

I'm now gonna give some props to Tull lyrics. IMO, the incredibly vast majority of rock lyrics totally suck ***. Either they're juvenile "I'm gonna rock you" or paens to sex from the mentality of a moronic high schooler, or they get "serious" and add naive social pretentions (Imagine) or, in the case of prog, are way too into D&D, or stupidly violent in metal. The Bob Dylans, Warren Zevons, and Joni Mitchells are rare (and a lot of that music is often thrust in the "folk" category, not rock).

And so I rank Anderson amongst my favorite lyricists. To me he is similar to Neil Peart in that when their lyrics are bad, they're horrendous (though Peart did me the favor of getting most his bad lyric writing out of his system before 1981), but when they're good they're pretty good, and at least they take some care into what the words are.

I remember seeing an interesting interview with Geoff Tate where he explains the revelation he had after the success of Mindcrime that people were actually listening to the words and he felt he needed the songs from then to actually say something.

Witness Ian Anderson painting a picture through musical lyrics:
"The minstrel in the gallery
looked down upon the smiling faces.
He met the gazes observed the spaces
between the old men's cackle.
He brewed a song of love and hatred,
oblique suggestions and he waited.
He polarized the pumpkin-eaters,
static-humming panel-beaters,
freshly day-glow'd factory cheaters
(salaried and collar-scrubbing).
He titillated men-of-action
belly warming, hands still rubbing
on the parts they never mention.
He pacified the nappy-suffering, infant-bleating,
one-line jokers, T.V. documentary makers
(overfed and undertakers).
Sunday paper backgammon players
family-scarred and women-haters.
Then he called the band down to the stage
and he looked at all the friends he'd made."

Lots of so-called "prog" bands can write tricky and occassionally even interesting music, but few lack the ability to put fun, engaging words that fit both the lyrical theme and the music and just sound really good together.

"Ale-spew, puddle-brew boys, throw it up clean.
Coke and Bacardi colours them green.
From the typing pool goes the mini-skirted princess
with great finesse.
Fertile earth-mother, your burial mound is fifty feet
down in the Baker Street underground"

 

YES!

Ian's lyrics are incredible! Especially the Minstrel album. Writing lyrics that don't suck is very, very hard. He just has this way with words that astounds me. There's a flow to the words and not only that, most times the words used are COMPLETELY unexpected! "Static humming panel beaters"?! That one line would take me a lifetime to come up with and it still wouldn't sound as cool!

 

Yeah. I credit two factors:
1. He's British. They're genetically better w/ words then we Yanks.
2. He made a conscious decision to avoid the blues influence. I guess one morning he looked in the mirror, realised he was white and that if he sang "My baby done left me" or some such, he'd look like a *****.

 

http://www.cupofwonder.com/essays7.html

 

Me too!

 

Living In the Past July 1972 A Passon Play July 1973 WarChild Oct. 1974

...more cool albums, the critics killed "A Passion Play" as it went to Number #1 on the American charts. A Passion Play tour - there were boos from the crowd - but the production rocked and the WarChild tour was tremendous.

 

Minstrel In The Gallery Sept. 1975

The cream of the crop to me!

 

Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die May 1976

,,, and die it would seem.

The one everyone seems to loathe - It has grown on me over the years.

 

Minstrel is perfect in so many ways!

 

Minstral seemed to be the first return to doing songs for songs' sake after the backlash from A Passion Play. Warchild was the soundtrack to a never completed film project, and while it has two very strong singles, it also has a lot of filler and silliness that make little sence outside of what may have been intended in the film (I'm a sealion with a ball at the carn-i-vaaaal).

Too Old was for an aborted stage play/musical. The title track was a disasterous choice for a dinasaur group to release the year that punk broke in England! though it's a fan fave today. (Odd to think that the 8 year old Tull was considered long in the tooth in 1976...) I particularly like From a Deadbeat to an Old Greaser, and the naughty cartooning inside.

But how can you say Minstral is perfect? They printed the frickin' back cover upside down!

 

Hey, that's some right brain thinking there

Now practice - flip the album cover from the top, back ends right side up.
Now flip the album cover from the bottom, right side up. Perfect.

None of this right left flipping stuff, for Tull fans.

-sorry for being so flippant.

 

I don't know. I didn't think too much of them beyond acouple of hits like "Locomotive Breath" until recently when I heard the "Living In The Past" album all the way through. Pretty diverse band. The songs are a little too drawn out for me, though.

 

I love Jethro Tull!

They are one of the most incredible bands I've ever listened to.
Minstrel in the Gallery is also on the top of my list,
although I just can't choose only one!
The best for me are (in no particular order):

Aqualung
Thick as a Brick
Songs from the Wood

Well, I enjoy every Tull album!

 

My three favs are Thick as a Brick, Minstrel in the Gallery, and A Passion Play. Tried to get into the more "folky" stuff but couldn't.