Written for Glyn’s Mixed Music Bag #20, where we are asked to write about a song by a group or solo singer beginning with the letter I or J.
The date was January 24, 1969. Jethro Tull stepped on stage at the Fillmore East to play their inaugural performance in the United States. Tull hadn’t yet reached the point of popularity in The States to warrant a headlining gig; they were the opening act for Blood, Sweat and Tears. That’s who we were there to see. When the opening act started playing, I remember turning to Bill and saying “I could be wrong but I think that guy’s playing a flute!” and that was the beginning of my love affair with Jethro Tull.
Even if their long career stalled at the start of the ‘70s, Jethro Tull would still go down in rock history for that one crucial thing: they proved that the flute could be a killer R&R instrument. Front man Ian Anderson has wielded the instrument – a favorite among middle-school-band girls and wandering minstrels for almost a thousand years – like a madman onstage, aggressively blowing solos usually reserved for guitars or saxophones. But paired with the band’s era-spanning brand of progressive folk music – expertly displayed on 1971’s breakthrough Aqualung album – the flute has become a weapon of mass destruction in Anderson’s hands. Despite the many lineup changes the band has gone through over the years, Jethro Tull’s records have rarely diverted from their ambitious paths. The group infamously won the first-ever Hard Rock/Metal Grammy in 1989. So there!
The track “Aqualung” is a story of homelessness and how society deals with it. Ian Anderson said his wife took photos of the homeless and showed them to him. Many of the lyrics describe actual homeless men. His wife also wrote some lyrics from the photos. Anderson went on to say “Aqualung” is a “guilt-ridden song of confusion about how you deal with beggars, the homeless and our reaction of guilt, distaste, awkwardness, all these things that we feel when we’re confronted with the reality of the situation. You see someone who’s clearly in desperate need of some help, whether it’s a few coins or the contents of your wallet, and you blank them out. The more you live in that business-driven, commercially-driven lifestyle, you can just cease to see them.”
Here’s a bit of history regarding the name of the album/song. An Aqualung is a portable breathing setup for divers (think scuba gear). Anderson’s photos showed a homeless man with breathing problems and the name “Aqualung” came to him. It turns out that Aqualung was a brand name for the deep sea breathing system in a TV show Anderson liked to watch – Sea Hunt. In a 2019 interview, Ian Anderson said, “They tried to sue the hell out of us, the Aqualung Corporation of North America. We apologized profusely and said, ‘Sorry, we didn’t know. We thought ALL underwater breathing apparatus were called Aqualungs because it’s so famous the world over.’ It was an honest mistake. I think they were flattered by the fact that we thought they were the one and only kind of company doing that stuff. They decided not to sue us after all.” Great story!
“Aqualung” was never released as a single simply because it’s too long. Radio at the time was sharply divided between AM, which played the 3-minute pop hits, and FM, where they played what was called deep cuts. The album Aqualung is Jethro Tull’s best-selling with more than seven million units worldwide. It was generally well-received critically and has been included on several music magazines’ best-of lists.
From 1971, this is “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull, from the album of the same name..
And this is Ian Anderson’s Flute Solo from 1976 in Tampa, Florida
Big thanks to Glyn for hosting Mixed Music Bag every week.
Thanks for stopping by and hanging with me today.
See you on the flip side. 😎
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