Jethro Tull “Aqualung” song released as album cut

Aqualung Jethro Tull

Writer(s): Ian Anderson, Jennie Anderson (see lyrics here) Released: March 19, 1971 (album cut on Aqualung) First Charted: -- Peak: 1 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 29.4 video, 90.47 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Jethro Tull formed in 1967 in England. They started by playing a mix of blues, rock, jazz, folk, and even classical. By 1971’s Aqualung, they “became more complex and progressive.” HL Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson was also emerging as the band’s undisputed leader as new key players, including guitarist Martin Barre were coming on board to replace the original lineup. HL While it was the group’s fourth top-10 in the UK, it was a huge leap forward for them commercially in the U.S. as their first top-10 album and only platinum seller (three times over). The album was also “a loosely conceptual work…[that] heralded the direction the band would take during much of the 1970s.” HL In addition, the band’s “direction was becoming more and more song centric, and Anderson’s words more bitingly social.” HL The album found him “firing off against religion, homelessness, and other attendant ills of society.” HL On the album’s title cut, Anderson and his then-wife Jennie “built up a powerful image of what it was like to be out on the streets in winter.” HL The lyrics were based on actual photos she took of transient men. SF The song also painted a slightly romanticized notion of this homeless tramp as “a free spirit, who either won’t or can’t join in society’s prescribed formats.” WK Anderson clearly “saw himself in the character,” HL something reinforced by the Burton Silverman oil painting on the album cover which “depicted a derelict in a dirty old raincoat.” HL The name of the character – and the song’s title – presumably came from the sound of the “rasping wheezing coming from his disease-wracked body.” HL As author Dave Thompson said, this is “not really a song about the diver’s greatest friend, but a lament for a man who sounds like he’s wearing one.” DT The song was never released as a single. Ian Anderson explained that “it was too long, it was too episodic; it starts off with a loud guitar riff and then goes into rather more laid back acoustic stuff.” SF The song did become a staple at classic rock radio. Anderson said, “Radio sharply divided between AM radio, which played the 3-minute pop hits, and FM radio where they played what they called deep cuts…the obscure, the longer, the more convoluted songs.” SF Resources: HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Pages 60-1. SF Songfacts DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 125. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/10/2023.