An introduction to
"Benefit"
The
year 1970 was a very important one for Jethro Tull.
The band had really arrived after their three US
tours in 1969, supporting Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac
a.o. Now they had their first headlining tour in the
US, but the heavy schedules, third-class hotels,
transport and food were taking their toll, and the
band members were frequently ill. Martin Barre said
that year: "We haven't stopped working this past
year. It's like a conveyor belt thing, making
records, going through America, it's endless".
Ian himself said: "I enjoyed the concerts but
everything else I really hated, because it seemed
such a terrible way of life. Every tour was 'the last
one'. My only recreation was writing the songs, which
at least injected some meaning into a hotel
room".
And that is exactly were most of the
material for the new album was written: 'Benefit',
released in May 1970, for which the keyboard-services
of old friend John Evans were called upon and who
would join the band lateron. The album - in
combination with the heavy touring caused Tull's
commercial breakthrough in the US and became an
immediate success. Even more than 'Stand Up' the
album moved away from the blues ( which would not be
'revisited' until 'Catfish Rising' in 1991). Like on
'Stand Up' the album contains ten songs and acoustic
and rock songs alternate, but there is an important
new feature that would make its way to every future
album from then on: the combination of rock and
acoustic parts within the songs. We can
almost see Ian experiment with this idea in songs
like 'Son' and 'Alive And Well And Living In'.
According to Craig Thomas in his liner notes in the
25th Anniversary box set Tull began to use this
electric/acoustic dichotomy in their music to
represent "... the clash between individual and
society, rural and urban, between happiness (however
qualified) and disillusion..."
Photographs from the
"Benefit" tour programme (1970).
By kind permission of Pete McHugh
(Electrocutas
- The Jethro Tull Archive).
As for the lyrics: we see a further
development. They are more poetic, there is more
imagery. Apart from the beautiful balad-like love
song 'Sossity', they do reflect the disillusions with
hard life on the road and a sense of dislocation, as
if Ian grew up in a generation he felt he didn't
belong to. This last aspect emerged from Ian's dismay
for having to play for people under the influence of
drugs and alcohol: "It's a little disturbing
playing to people who are, to quote, turned on. It's
difficult to know how to play to them. It's
disturbing to know that they must to some extent
imagine that I personally, and the other fellows in
the band, are just the same as them, you know?"
(Hit Parader interview, 1969). Like Frank Zappa he
hated to perform for a crowd of loaded hippies. Ian
remained a strong spokesman against drugs and alcohol
for the duration of his career. We find his first
critical remarks on that matter in 'Christmas Song'.
He stated he avoids intoxication because he feels it
interferes with his creative process and that he
needs to remain clear-headed to accomplish the kind
of self-analysis that he considers at the cornerstone
of his writing. Judson Caswell suggests that this
attitude acted to distance him from his audiences and
from his contemporaries: "unable to express
these sentiments overtly without ostracizing much of
his audience, his opions towards drugs were 'bottled
up' and arose as bitterness and anger in his music
toward the general culture of the times. (This
bitterness is very explicit on 'Aqualung', as we will
see - JV). He also speaks disdainfully and
condescendingly of the pace and greed of America in
interviews at this time".
Among Tull-fans , 'Benefit' is generally
considered as a good but not remarkable album. I
think that is unjust. Regarding the context and
period it was conceived and released and taking in
account the band's further development, it is a very
important album. With 'Benefit' the band was both
musically and lyrically speaking on the threshold of
consolidating their own style which is so evident on
what I therefore tend to consider as the first real
Tull-album: 'Aqualung'.
'Inside'/'Alive And Well And Living
In', the single taken from the 'Benefit' album in
1970. The picture shows us new band member John Evans
and Ian's first wife Jennie Franks, who co-wrote the
lyrics of the title track of "Aqualung".
Annotations
With You There To Help
Me
According to Greg Russo
this song is about Jennie Franks, a secretary
in Chrysalis' publishing department, whom Ian
would marry later that year. The lyrics
reflect the pressure of the heavy touring
schedule and his longing for being home.
 
Nothing To Say
How many times do we
remain silent, fearing that our
questions/answers/comments will be
misinterpreted or crushed upon heavy
disagreement? Too many times - as this song
says, in a metaphorical way. "Nothing to
say" because the narrator's (it's a
model, a stereotype, whatever you call it,
he's basically a representative of the human
race) ideas and own thoughts are being pushed
and pulled by exterior pressures, specially
(maybe even uniquely) social ones. Society
doesn't want to know what individuals think
or comment; we are all just wheels in a very
complex and large machine - there's no space
for personal freedom. (This is a subject that
Ian has addressed many times before and
afterwards, in songs like "Thick as a
Brick" or "Uniform".)
"No I say I have the
answer proven to be true,
but if I were to share it with you,
you would stand to gain and I to lose."
The narrator believes that he
can only appreciate his ideas in inner
reflection; society offers no answers for him
and twists anything new that he would offer -
individuality and self-centred selfishness is
the only exit.
The narrator feels that society builds its
own prison and programs its own decay - and
he refuses to acknowledge and be accoustumed
to that ("...the walls
collapse, broken by the lies that your
misfortune brought upon us"). "Freedom" was
built by Men itself; therefore it could be a "deceiving
sign", many times offered in
a virtuous manner, and ultimately turns out
into a even worst idea prison than before,
maybe even collapsing when its foundations
aren't as solid as they should be (therefore
the "tower" metaphore). Men usually
deceives himself ("deceiving
sign"), and the narrator feels helpless
and alone when addressing the problem: he has
neither the power or the authority to present
answers or note flaws, he is not a born
leader or a messiah, he doesn't know anything
that anybody couldn't find out on their own ("it's
not my power to criticize or to ask you to be
blind") - the problems within
the human race ("... your own
pressing problem and the hate you must
unwind").
So, what's the use of crying out loud into
the sneering crowds? He himself is a part of
the "mechanism" ("...I
went your way ten years ago") and
nobody is actually ready to fully understand
and apply the answers. And so he has
"nothing to say".
* Alberto Ferreira
Alive And Well And
Living In
This is one of the 4
great love songs from Benefit, written for
Jenny (the others being "With You There
To Help Me", "To Cry You A
Song" and "Inside"). This one
has Jenny at home alone, while Ian is away,
presumably on tour, but desperate to get home
- see the afore mentioned songs. It is
one of the very few songs in which Anderson
shows any vulnerability:
"She's quite
content to sit there listening to what he
says,
how he didn't like to be
alone.
And if he feels like crying,
she's there to hear him."
The title comes from a figure of
speech that was quite common back then, e.g.
"Che Guevara is alive and well and
living in Havanna". Could also be a pun
- alive and well and living in, as
in inside as (opposed to outside - see the
lyrics to "Inside").
* Matthew Korn
This one could possibly
be about Ian's mother. One thing for sure, it
is a sensitive portrait of a woman who is
trying to hold herself together while her
life is falling apart: "Nobody
sees her there, her eyes are slowly closing.
If she should want some peace, she sits
there, without moving, and puts a pillow over
the phone." There
is emphasis on the isolation that she lives
in, as well as her need to sublimate her own
feelings: "And if she
feels like dancing, no one will know
it." She is
stifled by the control that her husband, who
is emotionally needy, exerts over her: "She's
quite content to sit there listening to what
he says, how he doesn't like to be alone. And
if he feels like crying, she'd better hear
him." Also, there is an
indication that the situation will not
change: "No reason to complain
and nothing to fear, they always will
be."
* Julie Hankinson
Son
A Time
For Everything
Continuation
|
Introduction 