This one has been delayed for a while - five straight
weeks of serious GBS studio days made it hard to even think about music, not to
mention write about it. I started this a while ago, but only recently got a
chance to finish it.
One of the dominant themes of this journal has been how the
songs of my youth have been filtered into my current playing and performing.
Time and time again I have commented on how pleasant it is when these songs
still connect. By way of contrast, here is one that didn’t.
Jethro Tull is one of those bands that has never been cool.
Even their hay-day they were a bit of a sideshow, never favoured by critics, and never widely popular in the hit parade, but nonetheless they developed a wide audience, and were very
successful in their understated way - as folk oriented bands often are.
I loved the album ‘Aqualung’ when I first heard
it. Ian Anderson’s rambling
poetry, the vaguely traditional guitar and flute based melodies, the unusual
riffs of songs like Cross-Eyed Mary - it was right up my alley in my high
school ‘blue period’. A particular favourite was Mother Goose. The flute hook,
which wraps itself around a complex guitar sequence, was particularly
brilliant. I remembered it fondly, so much so that I have consciously recreated
it a dozen times - compare it to GBS songs like ‘The Mermaid’ or ‘Gideon Brown’
for obvious examples. I was hoping for some pleasant nostalgia when I bought
the album again, almost 20 years after I first heard it.
Unfortunately, it was rather disappointing. The sound was as
flat as a board, the clever lyrics now seem absurd, and the band is both loose
and uninspired. The clarity of the re-mastered CD sound does not help any of
this; instead, it just underlines how wobbly their concept album theory was.
The flute hook in ‘Mother Goose’ is still a good idea, but that was as far as
it goes. One listen was enough. Instead of inspiring a happy reverie, I felt
like I had just discovered a poem I'd written after a Grade 10 break-up. It was all
a bit embarrassing.
Like everyone
else, I have my closet full of high school obsessions and passing fancies - the
Lemmy-inspired cowboy boots which almost crippled me, an all hot-dog diet,
Tolkein, my Traynor 250 watt amp, a stack of Black Flag t-shirts - all of which
I long ago abandoned.
‘Aqualung’ should have stayed with them.