An introduction to
"Rock Island"

After the great success of "Crest Of A Knave" (and of the "20 Years Of Jethro Tull" box set, released in 1988) it was almost impossible to write and record a new album that would meet the same high standards. Although "Rock Island" - released in Spemtember 1989 - used the same approach as "Crest Of A Knave", it was not at all a remarkable album. It contains some excellent songs, while others are rather mediocre compared to earlier albums. All of them appear to be thorough and sturdy, almost massive. Most of the material has a hard rock feel, featuring Martin Barre's electric guitars. What the album lacks is humor and lightness, which makes it all seem too serious. Anderson has been the first one to admit that. The same happened to earlier albums like "Benefit" and "Heavy Horses" and are by fans sometimes refered to as "the dark albums".

When we look at the lyrics much of this album deals with themes of alienation and loneliness, separation from the mainstream of society and wandering down strange avenues. The result is one of the more unsettling Tull albums - there's nothing on here to compare with the warmer, more comfortable stuff we've seen previously. The theme is continued in "Catfish Rising" to an extent, but there it's tempered slightly - 'White Innocence' e.g. is musically and lyrically much more easy to cope with, for example - as if there the narrator is accepting the situation rather than being miserable or angry about it.

All songs were written by Anderson, recorded at his home studio and most of the percussion was recorded at Dave Pegg's Woodworm's studio. To apply different keyboard playing styles, Ian invited Martin Allcock, Peter Vettese and John Evans, but the latter refused having lost his interest in music years before.

"Rock Island" was introduced to the fans through a year long world tour in 1989-1990.
* Julian Burnell, Jan Voorbij

The "Rock Island" tour programme (1989).
By kind permission of Pete McHugh
(Electrocutas - The Jethro Tull Archive).

 

Annotations

Kissing Willie

• The first thing we see with the song is that Ian wrote it in a first-person perspective i.e. the narrator, telling the story, is directly involved in it. The second thing we see is the 3-way relationship between the narrator, Willie and the "she" person. The first question to ask is who is Willie, or rather what is Willie? Well I don't know if Ian has a friend called Willie (don't think so!) and Ian usually writes about true events, so perhaps this is one of his story-songs. The title and the line "She shows a leg, shows it damn well", already shows that there is a mild sexual context to the song, so maybe if we look for more we will find it.

• Willie, is a common English slang word for the male genitalia (compare the American equivalent "wiener"- J.V.) and it very conceivable that Ian is the type of man who would use a word like this. The Scottish comedian, Billy Connelly, uses this word all the time when he's referring to that part of the body! If we do believe that Ian is playing around with this second meaning of the word, we begin to see all types of sexual innuendo in the lines "Willie stands and Willie falls", "Me and Willie just can't help come, when she calls" and even the line "She eats filet of sole and washes it down" seems to have a second, sexual, meaning.

• Another thing to keep in mind, is that the narrator doesn't seem to mind being cheated on. He's not angry at her at all, in fact it seems as if he quiet enjoys it, "Well, she's a nice girl, but her bad girl's better"! And why is this? Again, if we don't look at "Willie" being a person's name we can see a reason for this in the line "My best friend, Willie". It is said (not by me!) that many men build up a special bond between themselves and their private parts, you could almost call it, a friendship! So, perhaps this is what Ian is referring to in that line.

• So if we believe all that about Ian's use of the word "Willie" in this song, we see an almost totally new meaning to the line "now she's kissing Willie". No longer is it just innocent osculation between two lovers but in fact: fellatio! Look at the line "She eats filet of sole and washes it down" again, to see what I mean!
  * Oran Fitzgibbon
  
  

The Rattlesnake Trail

• To me, this one follows through many of the themes Ian's already explored in 'Jump Start'; the idea that society is leaving certain individuals behind and they're just going to have to deal with it in whatever way they can: "I'm going for the kill. I'm going tooth and nail up that dusty hill" are all implying images of combat and struggle against adversity to get what you want. The narrator here is clearly destitute ("I wear a hair shirt round my shoulders, got cold stew in my spoon"), but isn't going to settle for that. He wants the good life ("... put that apple in the pie") and isn't afraid to break the rules to get it. "Got the law laid down to the left of me, got the real world to the right" is a line recognising that this person has to choose between a system which is going to keep him down and breaking the rules to get ahead, and is trying to balance the two: "heading up through the middle".
  * Julian Burnell

• In some of the songs Anderson wrote in the late eighties he applied what I would like to call "American imagery" in which he wraps a story or expresses his feelings: "Farm On The Freeway", "Part Of The Machine" and this song: "The Rattlesnake Trail". The person Julian Burnell describes in the annotation above is presented to us by means of images and notions from the 19th century Wild West days. The main person in this story is a desperado, who doesn't care anymore and has nothing to lose. There are several images from "cowboy life" and "the wild open spaces of the West": "Got a cold stew in my spoon (...) Going to be with wolves in winter (...) dusty hill (...) rattlesnake trail (...) going to ride hard in bandit country".
  * Jan Voorbij
  
  

Ears Of Tin

• The most specifically British song on 'Rock Island, to my mind, is 'Ears Of Tin' (which originally was titled "Mainland Blues"):
  "In the late hours of a sunset rendezvous --
  chill breeze against tide, that carries me from you.
  Got a job in a southern city -- got some lead-free in my tank.
  Now I must whisper goodbye -- I'm bound for the mainland."
  The first verse seems to be a straight narrative. Someone from Skye has found a job requiring him to leave home and move to a city on the British mainland. He's saying goodbye to someone before boarding the ferry and sailing off into the sunset. Three comments:
  1. I don't think this is one of Ian's autobiographical songs. I've always interpreted the narrator as someone born and bred on Skye, in subsequent verses experiencing life in a city for the first time.
  2. Travelling from Skye to mainland Scotland is away from the setting sun! So the first line is 'merely' setting an atmosphere.
  3. Note the Americanism: "got some lead-free in my tank" The British phrase would be 'unleaded', not 'lead-free'. So why did Ian use it?

• "Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
  People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity."
  This describes the narrator's anticipa ted loneliness in the city, out of his home environment. He expects to feel like a solitary island in the ocean of the everyday concerns of urban dwellers. I read the phrase "cut by a cold sea" in two ways. It could mean that he expects the urban people to be cold and unfriendly, too wrapped-up in their daily concerns to accept an outsider. Alternatively, the narrator thinks that he'll find himself 'cut-off' and unable to identify with the urban people, because his upbringing next to the cold seas around Skye gave him a different outlook on life.

Waterfall near Glen Shiel, © Scotland In Focus Picture Library

• "Now the sun breaks through rain as I climb Glen Shiel
  on the trail of those old cattlemen who drove their bargain south again.
  And in the eyes of those five sisters of Kintail....."
  These lines refer specifically to landmarks near Skye. Driving north from Dun Ringill and Strathaird, one crosses from Skye to the mainland on the Kyle of Lochalsh ferry (I guess this is also the 'Kyle' mentioned in another Tull song; I've temporarily forgotten which.). The most direct route to the southern cities is to drive south-east, up Glen Shiel, a valley lined by mountain peaks called the Five Sisters of Kintail.

The Five Sisters Of Kintail (Source unknown)

• "there's a wink of seduction from the mainland."
  Money. Overall, I think a major theme of the song is rural depopulation; there's no work in the Highlands, so the young have to move to the cities. I did it myself, leaving rural Wales to work in England.

• "Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
  People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity."
  This repeated verse suggests that his earlier expectation of loneliness has been fulfilled.

• "Storm-lashed on the high-rise -- their words are spray to the wind.
  Blown like silent laughter. Falling on ears of tin."
  City talk doesn't grab him, and the city people can't understand his views. Incidentally, why ears of tin, rather than ears of, say, wood? Was tin ever mined on Skye? Or is tin used simply because it's a dull, utilitarian, rather mundane metal?

• "Take my heart and take my brawn.
  Take by stealth or take by storm -
  set my brain to cruise.
  I can see the glow of the suburb lights."
  The narrator is trying to switch off his emotions about leaving home, to get through the long drive to the city , and his life there, on 'autopilot'. He half-hopes that urban life will take him over and he'll fit in.

• "I'm fresh from the out-world -
  singing the mainland blues."
  There was a girl where I came from.
  Seems a long time, long time gone by.
  Wears the west wind in her hair.
  She calls from the hill - yeah, she calls
  in my mainland blues."
  In the light of what I've said, that's self-explanatory - he dreams of home.

• "There's a coast road that winds to heaven's door
  where a fat ferry floats on muted diesel roar."
  A beautiful image: driving along the coast road (presumably not the inland Glen Shiel road - he's taken the scenic route this time!), turning the final corner to see the ferry terminal, the 'gateway to Skye'. There's a ferry at the quay. If you've ever seen them, you'll realise that Ian's description of the Caledonian McBrayne ferries is really apt.

• "Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
  People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity.
  Storm-lashed on the high-rise - their words are spray to the wind.
  Blown like silent laughter. Falling on ears of tin 'in my mainland blues.' "
  I'm not sure what to make of the last line, tacked onto the end of a verse we've heard before, and sung in a different way. Could it be that the narrator has fled back to Skye and looks back on the awful experience of the city, or is he stuck in his 'mainland blues', and only dreams of going home?
  * Neil Thomason

• The title "Ears Of Tin" fits in with your theory that the lyrics on this album are peppered with americanisms. I didn't know "ears of tin" was an americanism, but then, I've never left America. When we say someone has "tin ears," it means they are tone-deaf, they have no ear for music. This idea fits in rather nicely with the concept of "mainland blues." The narrator is suffering from these mainland blues, and the citygoers, with their ears of tin, don't understand why. They don't get the music.
  * Ian MacFarland
  
  
  

Continuation

Sources:
1. Barbara Espinoza: "Driving In Diverse, A Collective Profile Of Jethro Tull" (Kearney, NE, 1999); 2. K. Schram (ed.), Gerard J. Burns:" The Jethro Tull Songbook" (English-German edition; Heidelberg, Germany, 1997); 3. Greg Russo: Flying Colours, The Jethro Tull Reference Manual (Floral Park, N.Y., 2000)