Thick as the Past

One of the things that mystified me about how the British music industry is set up is the fact that singles and LPs were two distinct markets to the Brits. Here the single usually drove sales of the album, whereas in England, the singles most times weren't even on the albums. Hence "Living in the Past", a catch-up release for Americans who hadn't heard many of the early JT singles. Even though it's a hodge-podge of odds & sods, I really enjoy LITP exactly because it features such a mix. Tull almost always had a nice balance of acoustic balladry and electric riff-rock, and the random selections on LITP shows off this side of the band. I don't listen to the live tracks much anymore, but LITP is a keeper. I even saved my old LP edition because it really is a nice package with lots of great photos.




"Thick As A Brick" and "A Passion Play" were the concept albums writ large. (Maybe in the case of PP, too large.) "Thick" stills holds up well for me, again a fine blend of acoustic and electric. The idea of a single 40-minute song was deemed preposterous by those who didn't get that Tull had a sense of humor, and they certainly didn't mind taking the piss out of themselves. (Promo copies of both "Thick" and "Passion" actually broke down the track into individual songs for radio play. I'm told the Mobile Fidelity CD editions continued that practice.)
"A Passion Play" is a bit dodgier in my book; the attempt to lighten the mood with "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" story that occurs in the middle just meant you had to get up and move the record stylus to avoid it. I have the rest taped onto an ancient cassette and it's still enjoyable if I'm taking a long-ish drive.
But the weightier lyrical bent of "Aqualung" and "Thick" does tend to get even weightier on "A Passion Play" and for me, bogs it down.



So...a few concept albums under their belt, what's the next move for a rock band in the early '70s? Why, a movie, of course. "War Child" was most of the song bits meant for Ian's movie concept about God and the Devil. The movie fell into financing problems and so never got made, and you can thank either God or the Devil for that!
But, for me, "War Child" is one of the very best Tull albums. It featured the unfortunate single "Bungle in the Jungle", a song I hate every time I hear it on the radio (and every time I turn it up -- damn you, Ian and your bag of hooks!) I think "Bungle" is actually the weakest track on a great album. Ian's production skills reached their apex here -- listen to how on "Skating Away On the Thin Ice of the New Day", he drops instruments in and out of the mix so deftly -- a tabla lick here, tamboura grace note here. Definitely a high water mark. (You may want to check out Steeleye Span's "Now We Are Six", an Ian production featuring David Bowie -- and Peter Sellers!)




"Minstrel in the Gallery" followed, and while I think it has some keepers, too many tracks sound bloated (in the sense that "These will go down well when we play the stadiums in the States!") to me. "Too Old to Rock'n'Roll: Too Young to Die!" actually has some fine songs on it, but the title track is too dumb and too long, and the cover art (along with "War Child") is dreck. Punk was now the pop-du-jour, and "Too Old", in look and concept, just set Tull up as the next dinosaurs headed to the tar pits. Too bad, because the good tracks got ignored.




"Songs from the Wood" was not actually a return for Tull, but the album where Ian decided to take a different fork in the road, emphasizing the folkier, more rustic elements that were already a part of the Tull sound. Ian always had an uncanny ability to learn from past misfires and land on all fours. It was a good decision; "Songs" had many soon-to-be classic Tull songs, it restored much of their fan base, and heck, even had another Christmas song on it!
But I was working at a record store when this album came out, fully seduced by the Sex Pistols and the punk explosion that was such a welcome clearing of the decks that the record industry needed, so at the time, this LP was my swan song for Tull. Ian's voice was beginning to show the strain that would later seriously affect his singing. I was falling in love, so Ian's leer in "Hunting Girl" seemed juvenile. Yes, I loved almost all of "Songs from the Wood", but I'd graduated from college. I was ready for new things, time to put the bands I loved in high school behind me. Jethro Tull would now be filed away to gather dust.

Next: Boy, was I wrong! (Okay, just about Tull -- the falling in love thing worked out very well!)