Aqualung is the fourth Studio album by the progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released in 1971. The songs are written by frontman Ian Anderson (the title song in collaboration with his then-wife Jennie Franks).
There are more than 6 million albums sold[1], which makes it a great commercial success. It led to the breakthrough of Jethro Tull in America.
Content[]
Theme[Edit][]
The first half of the album consists of six character sketches, including two of those with a questionable reputation (Wanderer Aqualung and cross-eyed Maryteen prostitute) and two autobiographical songs including Cheap Day Return; a number that Anderson wrote after visiting his seriously ill father. Aqualung is a fictional character, a person who is attracted to adolescent girls and respiratory problems, based on a bum that Anderson's then wife Jennie Franks had photographed in London. His nickname thanks Aqualung to his rales breathing:
- "And you snatch your rattling last breaths, with deep-sea-diver sounds."
The overall message of the second half of the album is pro-God but anti-Church and deals with the religious experiences of Anderson, and makes the statement that organized religion rather the bond between man and God limited instead of propagates. The atmosphere does sometimes mysterious calls to, and medieval images.
From My God:
- "People, what have you done, locked Him in His golden cage.
- Made Him bend to your religion, Him resurrected from the grave.
- He is the God or nothing, if that's all that you can see."
From Hymn 43:
- "If Jesus saves-well, he'd better save Himself
- from the gory glory seekers who use His name in death."
One must these texts in the Zeitgeist of the 1970s see, where this very startling and there were a shocking operation of went out. They provided at least for turmoil, and it was absolutely not common to an institution as the church so to address. In certain religious communities in the United States are copies of this album ended up literally at the stake because of blasphemy. Anderson in 1971:
- "It's very dissatisfying to me that children are brought up to follow the same God as their parents. God is the abstract idea Man chooses to worship; he doesn't have to worship. (...) Children are brought up to be Jewish, Catholic or Protestant just by an accident of birth. I think that's a presumptuous and immoral thing to do. Religion makes a dividing line between human beings and that's wrong. I think it's very wrong that we are brainwashed at school with a set of religious ideas. It should be up to you to think and make your own decision. "
Aqualung was the first album that was recorded in the new studios of Island Records in Basing Street, London. The large studio in which Jethro Tull worked (an old church Chapel) was what made the recording process quite troublesome startup problems. Led Zeppelin mixed their fourth album at the same time in the small studio next to it.
Some critics consider the religious views on side two as the views of Aqualung and see the album as a concept album. However, this is contradicted by Anderson. At one point, however, he was so fed up that the press but continued to write about the concept album, which he has said: "Aqualung is not a concept album, but if they really like to, then we give them their their goddamned mother of all concept albums"; that successor wasThick As A Brick.
Line up[Edit][]
- Ian Anderson (flute, acoustic guitar, voice)
- Clive Bunker (' thousand ' drums, percussion)
- Martin Barre (electric guitar, soprano recorder)
- John Evan (piano, organ, mellotron)
- Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (bass guitar, Alto recorder, strange votes)
Guest Musician:
- David Palmer (arrangement for Orchestra)
- unknown Orchestra
Numbers[Edit][]
- Aqualung
- Cross-eyed Mary
- Cheap Day Return
- Mother Goose
- Wond'ring Aloud
- Up To Me
- My God
- Hymn 43
- Slipstream
- Locomotive Breath
- Wind-up
- Lick Your Fingers Clean ¹
- Wind Up (Quad version) ¹
- Interview with Ian Anderson ¹
- A Song For Jeffrey ¹
- Fat Man ¹
- Bourée ¹
¹ Bonus tracks of the Digital ' Remastered ' version.
Trivia[Edit][]
- On the original album cover (which shows the figure Aqualung ) was not the band name and album name. However, this information is found in later pressings pressed.
- Songs from this album are much covered by other bands, whose cover version of "cross-eyed Mary" by Iron Maiden is a well-known- Bruce Dickinson is Jethro Tull fan. This (B-) single was also one of the few successes that Iron Maiden in America has taken off, and the most played number of them on the radio there. [source?]
- In 2004, the band played the entire album for a radio show live and recorded and later released on cd: Aqualung Live.