Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play: Inside Two Long Songs

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play

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Jethro

Tull’s

THICK AS A BRICK

and

A PASSION PLAY

INSIDE TWO LONG SONGS

TIM SMOLKO

FOREWORD BY ADRIAN STONE-MASON

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS  Bloomington & Indianapolis

This book is a publication of

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© 2013 by Timothy J. Smolko

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Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smolko, Tim, author.

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a brick and A passion play : inside two long songs / Tim Smolko.

pages cm. – (Profiles in popular music)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-253-01026-1 (cloth : alkaline paper) – ISBN 978-0-253-01031-5 (paperback : alkaline paper) – ISBN 978-0-253-01038-4 (ebook) 1. Jethro Tull (Musical group) 2. Rock music – England – 1971-1980 – History and criticism. 3. Progressive rock music. I. Title. II. Series: Profiles in popular music.

ML421.J5S66 2013

782.42166092’2 – dc23

2013010486

1  2  3  4  5    18  17  16  15  14  13

Contents

• List of Illustrations

• Foreword by Adrian Stone-Mason

• Preface

• Acknowledgments

1 Life Is a Long Song: Providing a Context for Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play

2 Galliards and Lute Songs: The Influence of Early Music in Jethro Tull

3 Geared toward the Exceptional Rather than the Average: The Album Cover and Lyrics of Thick as a Brick

4 The Music of Thick as a Brick: Form and Thematic Development

5 The Music of Thick as a Brick: Other Features

6 The Château d’Isaster Tapes and the Album Cover and Lyrics of A Passion Play

7 The Music of A Passion Play

8 Monty Python, Reception, and Live Versions

• Conclusions

• Epilogue: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?

• Appendix 1. The Complete Lyrics to Thick as a Brick

• Appendix 2. The Complete Lyrics to A Passion Play

• Appendix 3. Analysis of the Instrumental Passages

• Notes

• Bibliography

• Discography

• Videography

• Index

Illustrations

FIGURES

MUSICAL EXAMPLES

TABLES

Foreword by Adrian Stone-Mason, BA (Hons), FRICS, RIBA

(with a little helpful encouragement from Mr. Ian Anderson)

Tim smolko’s book on the subjects of thick as a brick, A Passion Play, and The Chateau D’Isaster Tapes makes for a scholarly but vigorous insight into the sometimes wacky but always considered and adventurous world of Ian Anderson’s rather extreme musical meanderings of the early ’70s.

Exploring the background to the advent of progressive rock and the often uneasy parallels with many of Anderson’s musical contemporaries, Smolko keeps this rounded, grounded, well-founded, and contextual picture of Jethro Tull’s record album excesses continually entertaining for the reader.

Doubtless Anderson himself would take issue with some of the analysis and historical detail, but the level of research and cross-referencing in the preparation of this book makes for convincing factual evidence to support the musicology.

But what is the point, we might ask, of such painstaking and, perhaps, even obsessive attention to the minutiae of detailed reference? The point must be, surely, that when an even half-keen listener next sits down to listen to these big rock albums, there is now an educated companion potentially at his or her side. A step-by-step guide to the flora and fauna of Anderson’s jungle creation. A road map for the exquisite journey on the back roads. A recipe book to explain the banquet feast of musical delights.

So don’t be put off by the seriousness of this book or reject its good intentions. It is a vivid insight into the Anderson creative force and the efforts of his often-changing band of merrie men.

From codpiece to coda, from flutter-tongue to fugue, from B-flat to, er, D-sharp … Tim Smolko covers the ground, dots the i’s, and crosses the bridges when he comes to them.

Prepare for the journey. Take reading glasses, smelling salts, and a wee dram of something smoky from the peat bogs of the Western Isles. Take a friend. If you have one left, that is, after playing A Passion Play too loudly through the open window after Matins last Sunday.

Adrian Stone-Mason

St. Cleve

Somerset

December 2012

Preface

Most record collectors remember in vivid detail the first time they discover a favorite album. Many years ago when I first saw Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick in the stacks at Jerry’s Records in Pittsburgh, I was intrigued. Why did they make the album cover into a newspaper? What was all the text about? Who was this strange little bloke, Gerald Bostock, staring back at me from the cover? When I saw that the album folded out into a full-size, twelve-page newspaper and realized how hilarious and absurd it was, I was fascinated. Then when I looked at the record itself and saw only Thick as a Brick on the label instead of a numbered list of songs, and noticed the continuous groove on both sides (Is it really just one long song?), I was hooked. It took me less than a minute to decide to buy it.

Before I bought the album, I had heard the Thick as a Brick three-minute single many times on the radio and on the first Jethro Tull greatest hits compilation, M.U. The Best of Jethro Tull, which I owned. When I discovered the Thick as a Brick album that day in Jerry’s Records, it came as a complete shock to me that the single was simply the first three minutes of a continuous forty-three-minute song.¹ When I began listening to the music and lyrics, they seemed to be serious and studied, in contrast to the cover, which was silly and surreal. The music struck me as being raw and refined at the same time. Thus began my fascination with this unusually long rock song.

This book began as an exploration of just Thick as a Brick, but it’s hard to do a study of that album without also considering the band’s next one, A Passion Play, an even more outrageous sonic adventure. They are close cousins in that both consist of an album-length song, both contain some of Jethro Tull’s most difficult music and lyrics, and, ironically, both are the band’s only albums to hit number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart. So I expanded the book to explore A Passion Play and thought I was finished. I wasn’t. On the day I signed the publishing contract for this book, Ian Anderson announced on Jethro Tull’s website that he was releasing a full-fledged sequel to Thick as a Brick titled Thick as a Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? complete with an online version of the spoof newspaper. The sequel was also released as an LP. The years 2012–2013 brought an eighteen-month world tour with the complete performances of both the original work and its sequel, a sonically improved edition of the original Thick as a Brick, and a new solo album by Anderson. Thus, this book comes at a fortuitous time, when Anderson and his band – forty-five years after their first album – are as creative and active as they have ever been.

PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

While rock journalists have been writing reviews, articles, biographies, and discographies of progressive rock bands since the 1970s, it was only in the 1990s that progressive rock – and rock music in general, for that matter – began to receive any significant attention from musicologists. In 1997 Edward Macan published his definitive study Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture.² Other scholars such as Nors Josephson, Allan Moore, Walter Everett, and John Covach laid the groundwork for musical analyses of the longer pieces by bands such as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson. These scholars showed that the analytic methodologies used to explore classical music were also useful in analyzing the large-scale structures found in progressive rock. Since the early 2000s, a growing number of musicologists, including Mark Spicer, John Sheinbaum, and Kevin Holm-Hudson, have been doing thorough analyses of many progressive rock pieces.

The purpose of this book is primarily to explore the musical content of Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, two of the most complex and compelling pieces of rock music ever recorded. Jethro Tull have sold over sixty million records and have played more than three thousand concerts worldwide in over fifty countries in their forty-five-year career. They are one of the few rock bands originating in the 1960s that are still recording and performing. They appeal to a broad range of music lovers because they have fostered an eclectic, yet accessible, style embracing rock, folk, jazz, blues, world, and classical music. Yet, out of all the major British progressive rock bands, they have received the least attention in terms of musical analysis. The majority of writings on the band have consisted of histories, biographies, and discographies, the best being Greg Russo’s Flying Colours: The Jethro Tull Reference Manual.³ Allan Moore does some analysis of the style characteristics of Jethro Tull’s music in his book Rock: The Primary Text, but no album or song receives a thorough analysis.⁴ Moore’s book Aqualung is a detailed study of that album and is the only such scholarly work on a specific Jethro Tull album.⁵ John Covach wrote a short article on Thick as a Brick in the progressive rock periodical Progression Magazine, but it is only an introduction to the piece.⁶ Several fans, including Jan Voorbij, Andrew Jackson, and Neil Thomason, have created elaborate websites with thorough analyses of the lyrics of both albums but not the music. This book, with its lengthy analysis of the music of Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, is designed to fill that gap. While the emergence of progressive rock as a distinct style of rock music and Jethro Tull’s place within this style have been well documented, much more needs to be said about how significant a milestone these two albums were in the early 1970s, a period that saw great expansion in the boundaries and possibilities of rock music.

The opening chapter of the book discusses the two albums in the context of late 1960s and early 1970s rock music, their chart success, their length, and the origins and development of Jethro Tull. Chapter 2 shows how the band integrated elements of medieval and Renaissance culture, literature, and music into their lyrics, music, album covers, and live shows. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 examine the album cover, lyrics, and music of Thick as a Brick. Chapter 6 considers The Château d’Isaster Tapes, the recordings from an aborted first attempt at what would become A Passion Play. The chapter also examines the album cover and lyrics of A Passion Play, while chapter 7 analyzes the music. Lastly, chapter 8 shows how the structure and flow of the two albums is similar to the structure and flow of the British television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus and describes how the albums were received by fans, critics, and the musicians themselves. It also considers the live versions of the two pieces, which Jethro Tull performed in their entirety during their 1972 and 1973 tours. The epilogue discusses the sequel album Thick as a Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? and the accompanying live show.

Acknowledgments

First off, I’d like to thank my wonderful wife, joanna, for encouraging me, editing me, and acclimating her ears to the din of loud electric guitars and drums. I owe so much to you and I love you!

I’d also like to thank:

My editors at Indiana University Press, Raina Polivka and Darja Malcolm-Clarke, along with series editors Felicia Miyakawa, and Jeffrey Magee. Thanks also to Jill R. Hughes for an excellent copyedit.

Ian Anderson, who granted me a phone interview, wrote the foreword, and gave me permission to include the lyrics of the two songs and scans of the album covers in the book. Thanks to all the members of Jethro Tull, past and present, for forty-five years of superb and inspiring music. Thanks also to Anne Leighton and Jenny Hughes at Jethro Tull management, and Julie McDowell at Hal Leonard, for their assistance with various details of the book.

The music professors at the University of Georgia, especially Dr. David Haas, Dr. David Schiller, and Dr. Leonard Ball. Special thanks to Dr. Robert Greenberg for his Teaching Company lectures and to Dr. Stephen Valdez, rock scholar extraordinaire and all-around cool guy.

UGA Library colleagues Neil Hughes, Kelly Holt, and Gil Head for their input, encouragement, and support.

My small-town parents, who encouraged me to pursue big-city dreams. My parents-in-law, Rich and Deb Hastings, for providing a piano upon which I picked out many a Tull melody.

Friends who have greatly inspired me, both in music and life in general: Dan Cush, Brent and Molly Stater, Sal Manzella, and my church families at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and University Church in Athens, whom I stand beside in praise of our Savior.

Friends and colleagues who have given me good advice: Deane Root, Kathy Miller Haines, Jim Cassaro, Jessica Sternfeld, Alan Shockley, Kevin Holm-Hudson, and Ed Macan.

Jerry Weber, owner of Jerry’s Records in Pittsburgh, on whose shelves one can always find a pristine copy of Thick as a Brick, complete with newspaper.

Karen Paddison, who first introduced me to Monty Python’s Flying Circus and various other British eccentricities.

Andrew Jackson (Jethro Tull Press), Jan Voorbij (Cup of Wonder), and Neil Thomason (Ministry of Information) for their well-designed, accurate, and exhaustive websites on Jethro Tull. Greg Russo, David Rees, and Scott Allen Nollen for their excellent biographies of the band. Special thanks to Blackpool rock historian Pete Shelton.

Lastly, thanks to our five-year-old twins, Ian and Elanor, who, when they are teenagers, will probably introduce me to their friends in this manner: This is my dad. He likes to listen to forty-five-minute rock songs (groan).

Except where indicated, all the musical examples in the book are my own transcriptions of the music from the remixed CD of Thick as a Brick (Chrysalis Records 5099970461923, 2012) and the remastered CD of A Passion Play (Chrysalis Records 7243 5 81569 0 4, 2003).

Thanks to Ian Anderson, BMG/Chrysalis, and Hal Leonard for permission to include the complete lyrics in the book.

Thick as a Brick

Words and Music by Ian Anderson.

Copyright ©1976 Chrysalis Music Ltd.

Copyright Renewed.

All Rights for the U.S. and Canada Administered by Chrysalis Music.

All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

Passion Play

Words and Music by Ian Anderson.

Copyright ©1973 Chrysalis Music Ltd.

Copyright Renewed.

All Rights for the U.S. and Canada Administered by Chrysalis Music.

All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play

ONE

Life Is a Long Song: Providing a Context for Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, british progressive rock bands such as King Crimson; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Yes; Genesis; and Jethro Tull were imbuing their music with a broadened harmonic palette, large-scale forms, polyphonic textures, avant-garde sensibilities, virtuoso technique, and the use of the latest advances in instrument and studio technology. All of these ingredients are in evidence on Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick (1972) and A Passion Play (1973). Each of these albums is one continuous song – composed of numerous vocal sections interspersed with instrumental passages – lasting over forty minutes. Their complex yet accessible music, perplexing lyrics, and unique LP packaging place them among the most creative albums in the history of rock music. Although they are quite innovative, one would not expect such oddities to achieve success with the mainstream popular music audience. Amazingly, they did. "Jethro Tull’s back-to-back Number One albums, 1972’s Thick as a Brick and 1973’s A Passion Play, are arguably the most uncommercial and uncompromising albums ever to top the Billboard album chart."¹ So writes Craig Rosen, author of The Billboard Book of Number One Albums. Thick as a Brick reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart in June 1972, where it remained for two weeks, and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart.² A Passion Play hit number one for one week on Billboard in August 1973. How can these uncommercial and uncompromising albums have been so popular?

In the mid to late 1960s the Beatles and other bands fostered an atmosphere of artistic freedom within the music industry and created a new style of popular music in which active and concentrated listening was valued. A simple comparison between an early Beatles album (Meet the Beatles! from 1964) and a later Beatles album (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1967) illustrates how quickly this spirit of inventiveness arose. The first album is a collection of singles primarily for dancing, while the second is an eclectic and experimental album made primarily for listening. The fact that both Beatles albums reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart shows the drastic shift in artistic expression in popular and rock music from the mid to late 1960s. In this period the rock album was becoming quite an experimental art form, with bands and musicians like Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, Miles Davis, and Frank Zappa taking it into uncharted territory. It was in this period, and because of this artistic freedom, that progressive rock arose as a distinctive style of rock music.

Yet even in this time of creativity and innovation, it is still remarkable that a band like Jethro Tull could release albums like Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play and see them become number one hits. The ability to compose extended pieces of music that are both challenging to the listener and accessible to the general popular music audience is something that few bands have accomplished. Of all the progressive and experimental rock bands in the 1960s and 1970s – besides the Beatles – only the Jimi Hendrix Experience (Electric Ladyland, 1968), Jethro Tull (Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play), and Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, 1973; Wish You Were Here, 1975; The Wall, 1980) had number one albums on the U.S. Billboard chart.³ Chart success was a little easier in England for these types of bands and musicians, with Jethro Tull (Stand Up, 1969), Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Tarkus. 1971), Pink Floyd (Atom Heart Mother, 1970; Wish You Were Here, 1975), Yes (Tales from Topographic Oceans, 1974; Going for the One, 1977), Rick Wakeman (Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 1974), and Mike Oldfield (Hergest Ridge, 1974; Tubular Bells, 1974) having albums that reached number one on the UK Albums Chart.⁴ While such charts are not a critical assessment of music, they are a good indication of what is in vogue at a particular time. In the early 1970s it seems that the popular music audience was interested in listening to a forty-minute-plus rock song – perhaps if only for the novelty of it.

THE RISE OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK IN THE LATE 1960S

While the early days of progressive rock have been well documented by Edward Macan, Paul Stump, and Bill Martin, a brief overview would not go amiss. Progressive rock grew out of the