March 3, 1972 - Thick As A Brick

It's been a long "two months" since my last release, and about a year since "Aqualung" when Jethro Tull released their fifth album "Thick As A Brick" on March 3, 1972. Several reviewers claimed that "Aqualung" was a concept album about religion, which frontman Ian Anderson publicly denied, saying it was just a collection of songs. Still, they persisted, and so Anderson wanted to show everyone what a concept album by Jethro Tull would really look like. Enter "Thick As A Brick" an album that has only one continuous song. It is broken into two parts, each taking up an entire side of the record, but it is one continuous piece. It is meant as a parody of the grand rock epics that were becoming very popular at the time. It has several new instruments for Jethro Tull, including a strings section arranged by David Palmer as well as Anderson playing violin, saxophone and trumpet! Add that to his usual flute, acoustic guitar and lead vocals and Anderson is really showing his multi-instrument talents. This is also the first album with new drummer Barriemore Barlow who replaced original drummer Clive Bunker who retired to focus more on his family. Bunker was a great drummer and will surely be missed, but I am very excited to hear this almost 44-minute epic. Let's dive in!

The album opens with some cool acoustic guitar and flute, both played by Anderson. John Evan joins in on piano to add to this beautiful opening, and Anderson's singing is great as usual. Martin Barre, Barlow and Jeffrey Hammond join in to complete the full rock sound. We hear a couple good solos on organ and guitar and there's a short acoustic segue to a fast drumming part leading to a huge note. Jethro Tull are so great at these little interlinking bits that connect the larger movements. You never notice a pause at any point, as they start a new part with some awesome flute and cool piano. Evan switches to organ to back Anderson during another vocal section and some more cool flute and great guitar by Barre in the next part. It speeds up into an amazing instrumental bit with great contributions from everyone. They return to the same singing part as last time, but piano-led now. Everyone's really playing not just great, but great together as everyone seems in perfect sync for all these various changes. A distant-sounding organ riff by Evan sounds great and it leads into a cool bit with flute and yet another different vocal part. Anderson plays a flute solo that sounds fuckin' great, and after Anderson plays the opening guitar riff, but the band take a completely different direction. There's some lovely piano and it's cool to see them take the same riff to a different place. A new cool keyboard riff and acoustic start yet another verse, containing the line "We'll have Superman for President, let Robin save the day", which I like. There is just so much awesome flute in this song, there aren't enough superlatives to properly convey how great it is. There's a heavy riff with great organ by Evan that I really like and some cool distant guitar that fades into whistling, where the original vinyl would need to be flipped.

The second half starts back up with some slow piano, they throw it back to an earlier riff and then we hear an amazing drum solo by Barlow. Anderson plays some light flute overtop while Barlow really goes nuts! He seems a great replacement and really shows off his talents here. This moves into an odd talking part, and again the starting acoustic riff makes an appearance. And once again, Tull spin it in a completely different direction. It has some cool flute, cool keyboards and the new slow acoustic riff sounds good. This leads into a new part with great flute and acoustic and it sounds so epic! "Do you belieeeeeeeeeeve." Anderson plays another cool flute solo and Evan plays some great organ as well. These two especially are both playing some phenomenal stuff. Anderson sings a fantastic new part with more great keyboards and there's yet another flute solo. When you see it written out like this, it absolutely does not do justice to the amount of different ideas and amazing parts that this whole band come up with. There are dozens of different parts to this song, yet it never feels like it could have been broken up into individual tracks. Each part is beautifully connected to the next and when you can do that for an entire album, then that is something truly amazing. They go back to the "Superman" part from what seems like ages ago now, we hear some beautiful strings, and the band goes full force one last time! The song ends as it began, with Anderson on acoustic and ending the song with the name in a fantastic return to close out the song and the record.

That is the end of "Thick As A Brick", and what can I say? Masterpiece? Classic? One of a kind? None of these seem good enough. This song is so well done, it keeps you interested from start to finish and Anderson definitely showed everyone what a REAL concept album is like. The fact that this is all one song, ONE SONG, is just crazy! I think at this point in time for sure it is my favourite song ever written. And an album containing only one song, that is my favourite, would undoubtedly become Jethro Tull's best album so far. "Aqualung" was fantastic, so for Jethro Tull to go out and top that is quite the feat, but this album is more than quite the feat. Words do not do justice. If you've never heard this amazing song, then you are truly missing out.