Jethro Tull’s Aqualung — 40 Years Later and Snot is Still Running Down His Nose

Aqualung 40th Anniversary

Jethro Tull

November, 2011

In the dark days predating  MTV, YouTube and Google, we knew a lot less about the bands we loved.  Almost everything you gleaned about a band came from their cover art and liner notes, along with the scant coverage you might pick up in a few rock publications  like Rolling Stone, Creem, and Circus.  That’s probably why, some of us rock and roll kids in the 70s did not understand that Jethro Tull was not a person.

It usually went down something like this.  You and some friends are huddled up behind the high school sneaking a smoke and talking music.  Someone asks if you like the new Jethro Tull album and before you have a chance to think better of it, you open your stupid mouth and blurt out, “I think he’s great!”  Everyone laughs and you scurry home for dinner before anyone asks you about Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The guy often confused with the band’s namesake is Ian Anderson.  Anderson was not your typical rock and roll front man.  For one, he played a flute on almost every song.  He was also frequently photographed wearing some kind of medieval crotch sack over skin-tight leggings and knee-high boots.  Often, he was captured on one leg, playing his flute like a demented wood elf who learned how to stand by observing a flamingo.  Anderson must have had a tremendous sense of balance. I wonder if he ever tipped over.

Aqualung, the Tull’s fourth and perhaps best-loved album was recently remixed, re-mastered and released with second disk of bonus tracks and remixes to celebrate (i.e  cash in on) the record’s 40^th anniversary.   Anyone familiar with the original vinyl release and subsequent digital pressings will surely hear the sonic difference.  Whether or not you like it, however, will be a matter of taste.   The remix adds a crisp clarity to the music, especially the acoustic guitars, and helps bring some of the more subtle instrumental touches to the surface.  The tradeoff, however, is that you get a mix that is often the equivalent of conversing with a close talker.  It’s very, shall we say, “in your face.”  For some, the pleasure of listening to music is the process of un-peeling the onion and slowly discovering new elements that you never heard before.  That’s hard to do with this recording.

Each side of the original vinyl release was baited with two stand out compositions that went on to become hard rock classics,  Aqualung and Cross Eyed Mary on side one, followed by Hymn 43 and Locomotive Breath on side two.  Anyone stepping into this album expecting more of the same, however, was and still is, in for a surprise.  With the possible exception the closing song, Wind Up, the balance of Aqualung is filled with softer, strummed and plucked, acoustic folk songs, often with minimal bass, drums and electric guitar work.  The hard split between electric and acoustic music is similar to what Led Zeppelin accomplished with their third album.   Only with Aqualung, the acoustic songs are interspersed amongst the heavier numbers as opposed to being segregated and pressed into separate sides of the vinyl platter as they were on Zeppelin III.   The effect is jarring either way and always felt like a bait and switch to me. There seems to be no way around the fact that unless you happen to like hard rock and acoustic folk tunes played by the same band, or to a lesser extent men in tights…or flutes,  you are going to spend half of your time with Aqualung disappointed.

As is often the case with tossed in bonus CDs, the extra material is enjoyable and enlightening, but inessential.  At the very reasonable street price of less than $20, I suspect most fans will enjoy the sonic upgrade available with this commemorative release.  Now, after 40 years, will someone please do our friend Aqualung a favor and give that man a Kleenex!

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