Songs from the Wood

I’ve dug Jethro Tull off and on throughout the years. They were the first live band I ever saw, way back in 1984 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands. I got into them a few years earlier, sometime in middle school – my friend had two of their records, Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses. We used to listen to them while we played D&D, washing bags of Doritos down with Pepsi in his basement. Yeah, we were ladykillers back then.

My uncle had Aqualung on vinyl; he recorded it on to cassette for me one summer. But my interest in Tull faded as I got into bands such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath. As I’ve written about earlier somewhere here on the Hopper, I didn’t quite take to all the “contemporary” Kajagoogoo music of the time: Duran Duran, Culture Club, all those lightweight groups MTV was foisting upon us. Me, I just wanted guitar, the heavier the better.

Ten years ago, on a whim, I picked up a Jethro Tull best-of CD and fondly reminisced on all those tunes from days long gone. In short order I bought Minstrel in the Gallery, Broadsword and the Beast and War Child. I listened to them constantly while rewriting my two novels a few years ago. Every now and then I throw a Tull CD on and dig on it.

Why do I like them? Well, Ian Anderson, to my not untrained ears, has the second-best set of vocal chords I’ve ever heard in action. The timbre of his voice coupled with his accent is pitch-perfect. Now, I know in real life he’s accused of being somewhat of an snobbish egomaniac; a woman I knew 20 years ago met him at a party and said he was insufferably so. You can tell from the lyrics and his singing style. But I forgive him this, because a) I’ve never personally met him, and b) recall what I said about timbre and accent.

Anyway, I enjoy best the songs that highlight Ian’s crisp acoustic guitar, his flute, and his tremolo-style vocals. Hey, the eponymous song from, er, Songs from the Wood, is an excellent example. Want to hear it? Good! (Just imagine you’re a chubby nerdy twelve-year old thumbing through your Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, and you just walked 4 minutes in Young Hopper’s shoes.)




Want another? Okay – how about “Mother Goose”