| "Aqualung" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Jethro Tull | |
| from the album Aqualung | |
| Released | 19 March 1971 |
| Recorded | December 1970 –February 1971 |
| Studio | Island, London |
| Genre | |
| Length | 6:34 |
| Label | |
| Songwriter(s) | |
| Producer(s) | |
"Aqualung" is a song by the British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, and the title track from their Aqualung (1971) album. The song was written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson, and his then-wife Jennie Franks.
While this track was never a single, its self-titled album Aqualung was Jethro Tull's first American Top 10 album, reaching number seven in June 1971. [4] After "Locomotive Breath", it is the song most often played in concert by Jethro Tull. [5]
The original recording runs for 6:34. In an interview with singer Ian Anderson in the September 1999 Guitar World , he said: [6]
Aqualung wasn't a concept album, although a lot of people thought so. The idea came about from a photograph my wife at the time took of a tramp in London. I had feelings of guilt about the homeless, as well as fear and insecurity with people like that who seem a little scary. And I suppose all of that was combined with a slightly romanticized picture of the person who is homeless but yet a free spirit, who either won't or can't join in society's prescribed formats. So from that photograph and those sentiments, I began writing the words to "Aqualung". I can remember sitting in a hotel room in L.A., working out the chord structure for the verses. It's quite a tortured tangle of chords, but it was meant to really drag you here and there and then set you down into the more gentle acoustic section of the song.
The Aqualung character is also mentioned in "Cross-Eyed Mary", the next song on the album.
In a 2015 interview, Martin Barre recounted a situation with Led Zeppelin while recording the song's solo: [7]
We'd locked ourselves away in the studio—us doing Aqualung, and them working on Led Zeppelin IV —and I hadn't seen Jimmy Page at all. Finally, he walked into the control room to say hello, just as I was recording the solo to "Aqualung". Now, in those days, if you didn't get a guitar solo in one or two takes, it might become a flute solo. It was, 'Go in there and do it or else.' And here was Jimmy waving like mad—'Hey, Martin!'—and I'm thinking, 'I can't wave back, or I'm going to blow the solo!'
An alternative mix of "Aqualung", with a very different echo effect on Anderson's vocal, appears on the compilation M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull (1976). This version also has different acoustic guitar and vocal parts during the first part of the song ("sun streaking cold"), but then reverts to the regular mix at ("Aqualung my friend..."). This is most likely due to the fact that all the tracks from Aqualung on M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull were taken from the original quad-mix of the LP.
The track was not released as a single. As Ian Anderson explained during an interview with Songfacts: [8]
Because it was too long, it was too episodic, it starts off with a loud guitar riff and then goes into rather more laid back acoustic stuff. Led Zeppelin at the time, you know, they didn't release any singles. It was album tracks. And radio sharply divided between AM radio, which played the 3-minute pop hits, and FM radio, where they played what they called deep cuts. You would go into an album and play the obscure, the longer, the more convoluted songs in that period of more developmental rock music. But that day is not really with us anymore, whether it be classic rock stations that do play some of that music, but they are thin on the ground, and they too know that they've got to keep it short and sharp and cheerful, and provide the blue blanket of familiar sounding music and get onto the next set of commercial breaks, because that's what pays the radio station costs of being on the air. So pragmatic rules apply.
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Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire in 1967. Initially playing blues rock and jazz fusion, the band soon incorporated elements of English folk music, hard rock and classical music, forging a signature progressive rock sound. The group's founder, bandleader, principal composer, lead vocalist, and only constant member is Ian Anderson, a multi-instrumentalist who mainly plays flute and acoustic guitar. The group has featured a succession of musicians throughout the decades, including significant contributors such as guitarists Mick Abrahams and Martin Barre ; bassists Glenn Cornick, Jeffrey Hammond, John Glascock, Dave Pegg, Jonathan Noyce, and David Goodier; drummers Clive Bunker, Barrie "Barriemore" Barlow and Doane Perry; and keyboardists John Evan, Dee Palmer, Peter-John Vettese, Andrew Giddings, and John O'Hara.
Thick as a Brick is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released on 3 March 1972. The album contains one continuous piece of music, split over two sides of an LP record, and is intended as a parody of the concept album genre. The original packaging, designed as a 12-page newspaper, claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by fictional eight-year-old genius Gerald Bostock, though the lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.
Aqualung is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Jethro Tull; it was released in March 1971 by Chrysalis Records. Though it is generally regarded as a concept album, featuring a central theme of "the distinction between religion and God", the band have said there was no intention to make a concept album, and that only a few songs have a unifying theme. Aqualung's success signalled a turning point in the career of the band, who went on to become a major radio and touring act.
Repeat – The Best of Jethro Tull – Vol II is a 1977 greatest hits album from Jethro Tull, featuring one track which, up to the time of this album's release, had not been issued. The album's first volume was M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull.
Ian Scott Anderson is a British musician best known for his work as the singer, flautist, acoustic guitarist, primary songwriter, and sole continuous member of the rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays harmonica, keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with Walk into Light in 1983; since then he has released another five albums, including the sequel to the 1972 Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick, titled TaaB 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? (2012).
Stand Up, released in 1969, is the second studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull. It was the first Jethro Tull album to feature guitarist Martin Barre, who would go on to become the band's longtime guitarist until its initial dissolution in 2011. Before recording sessions for the album began, the band's original guitarist Mick Abrahams departed from the band as a result of musical differences with frontman and primary songwriter Ian Anderson; Abrahams wanted to stay with the blues rock sound of their 1968 debut, This Was, while Anderson wished to add other musical influences such as folk rock.
Minstrel in the Gallery is the eighth studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull, released in September 1975. The album sees the band going in a different direction from their previous work War Child (1974), returning to a blend of electric and acoustic songs, in a manner closer to their early 1970s albums such as Benefit (1970), Aqualung (1971) and Thick as a Brick (1972). Making use of a newly constructed mobile recording studio commissioned and constructed specifically for the band, the album was the first Jethro Tull album to be recorded outside of the UK, being recorded in tax exile in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Benefit is the third studio album by the British rock band Jethro Tull, released in April 1970. It was the first Tull album to include pianist and organist John Evan – though he was not yet considered a permanent member of the group – and the last to include bass guitarist Glenn Cornick, who was fired from the band upon completion of touring for the album. It was recorded at Morgan Studios, the same studio where the band recorded its previous album Stand Up; however, they experimented with more advanced recording techniques.
Martin Lancelot Barre is an English guitarist best known for his longtime role as lead guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he recorded and toured from 1968 until the band's initial dissolution in 2011. Barre played on all of Jethro Tull's studio albums from their 1969 album Stand Up to their 2003 album The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. In the early 1990s he began a solo career, and he has recorded several albums as well as touring with his own live band.
Bursting Out is a 1978 live double album by the rock band Jethro Tull. The album was recorded during the band's European Heavy Horses Tour in May/June of that year.
Crest of a Knave is the sixteenth studio album by British rock band Jethro Tull, released in 1987. The album was recorded after a three-year hiatus caused by a throat infection of vocalist Ian Anderson, resulting in his changed singing style. Following the unsuccessful electronic rock album Under Wraps, Crest of a Knave had the band returning to a more hard rock sound. The album was their most successful since the 1970s and the band enjoyed a resurgence on radio broadcasts, appearances in MTV specials and the airing of music videos. It was also a critical success, winning the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental in what was widely viewed as an upset over the favorite, Metallica's ...And Justice for All. The album was supported by "The Not Quite the World, More the Here and There Tour".
Rock Island is the 17th studio album by the British rock group Jethro Tull, released in 1989. The album continued the hard rock direction the band took on the previous effort, Crest of a Knave (1987). The line-up now included Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Dave Pegg and drummer Doane Perry in his first full recording with the band, although he had already been a member of Jethro Tull since 1984. Without a permanent keyboard player, the role was shared by Fairport Convention's Maartin Allcock and former Tull member Peter Vettese.
Clive William Bunker is a British drummer. Bunker is best known as the original drummer of the rock band Jethro Tull, playing in the band from 1967 until 1971. Never a self-professed technical drummer, Bunker engaged with the essence of blues and rock and roll, influenced by Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell. He was also inspired by Buddy Rich and The Hollies' Bobby Elliott.
Living with the Past is a live album by Jethro Tull. The first half contains material from the Hammersmith Apollo performance on 25 November 2001 and features songs from different eras of Tull's history as well as some pieces from Ian Anderson's solo albums: "The Habanero Reel", "The Water Carrier" from The Secret Language of Birds and the instrumental "In the Grip of Stronger Stuff" from Divinities: Twelve Dances with God. Aside from "Cheerio", other recordings are collected in the second half.
M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull, released in 1976, is the first proper greatest hits album by Jethro Tull. It spans the years 1969 to 1975. The earlier Living in the Past (1972) compilation mainly dealt with non-album material, but this album only features one previously unreleased song, "Rainbow Blues".
"Locomotive Breath" is a song by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull from their 1971 album, Aqualung.
"Cross-Eyed Mary" is a song by the British progressive rock band Jethro Tull from their album Aqualung (1971).
The Essential (2003) is a greatest hits album by Jethro Tull, digitally remastered. The songs included and their order are the same as Tull's first greatest hits album, M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull. It is not to be confused with the similarly named Jethro Tull compilation "Essential", released in 2011.
"Mother Goose" is a song by the British progressive rock band Jethro Tull. It is the fourth track from their album Aqualung which was released in 1971.
"Heavy Horses" is a song written by Ian Anderson and performed by his band Jethro Tull. The song was released on the 1978 album of the same name. Written as a tribute to horses, the song features folk rock elements that rebelled against the musical trends of the period.
