Photograph taken July 15th 1991 at the Izmir Amphitheater in Efesus, Turkey. Kevan Shaw explains: "We played there between two concerts at Izmir Amphitheatre. The first concert there was chaotic because the Turkish border guards refused the Greek lighting truck permission to enter so we tried to cobble up the house rig. Second attempt was more successful and was televised. Efesus was interesting because I lit the remains of the amphitheatre as a backdrop to the concert rather than use our normal one; it looked good and I took the photos myself from the lighting board. By courtesy of © Kevan D. Shaw.

 

Undressed To Kill

• We come back to the alienation theme in 'Undressed to Kill'; here the narrator encounters a prostitute (or a dancer in some nudy bar - JV): "a working girl undressed to kill"), and the imagery is twisted - what should be sexually attractive becomes artificial and unpleasantly contrived - "brushing silken dollars on her cold white skin" - there's no warmth or tenderness, just a business transaction.
  * Julian Burnell
  
  

Rock Island

• The theme continues through 'Rock Island', where we see individual people isolated on their home ground ("Doesn't everyone have their own Rock Island? Their own little patch of sand?"). There is no connection to each other ("And all roads out of here seem to lead right back to the Rock Island") and all are fairly dispirited and unhappy in different ways.
  * Julian Burnell

• The image of a rock island as applied in this song to portray human condition in Western society anno1989 is in my opinion not coincidal. After all Ian had lived on one for quite a few years: the Isle of Skye, where he spent some time managing and building up the Straithaird salmon farm. The cover of CD-inlay of this album shows a picture of the Isle of Skye taken from space.
  * Jan Voorbij
  
  

Heavy Water

• Again in 'Heavy Water', where a character (possibly the one from 'Ears of Tin'?) is finding himself adrift in a city which horrifies him ("It's hurting me to see, smokestack blowing now they're pouring heavy water on me"), among people he can't relate to ("She was a round hole, I was a square peg. Didn't seem to mind that dirty rain coming down" ).
  * Julian Burnell

• Visitors of this site have suggested that "Heavy Water" was inspired by the accident at the nuclear plant in Tsjernobyl, Russia in summer of 1986. Through this disaster the whole environment of this city became polluted by radioactivity. Even the clouds above this area were infected by radioactive particles and the east winds and rains spread the fall-out over the Scandinavian and Eastern-European countries. Cattle, vegetables, hay even milk had to be destroyed in some countries for being polluted.
  But it's not. Both Espinoza (1, p.92) and Schramm (2, p.23) quote Anderson stating that the song is about "Polluted rain - was based on one of my very first trips to New York. It was really, really hot and uncomfortable. Suddenly, blessed rain! I was standing out there getting wet and walking down the street, everybody else was running away from the rain. I realised that each drop of rain that had fallen on me made a dirty black mark. It was raining coal and sulphur, very unpleasant".
  * Jan Voorbij
  
  

 

Photograph taken during the Rock Island tour in 1990, exact location and date remain unknown. By courtesy of © Kevan D. Shaw, who also designed the lighting of the Under Wraps, Roots To Branches and Divinities tours.

Another Christmas Song

• This rustic song starts with three wishes, Christmas wishes perhaps:
  "Hope everybody's ringing on their own bell, this fine morning.
  Hope everybody's connected to that long distance phone. (...)
  Hope everybody's dancing to their own drum this fine morning:
  the beat of distant Africa or a Polish factory town".
  It praises the importance of home, family and harmony. In Western society Christmas over time has become the particular holiday for celebrating family alliance and community. People do everything to spend Christmas at home (Try to book a flight around December 20 and you will know what I mean). Hence the title. The narrator describes an old man who wants to gather his children around him:
  "I'm going to call, call all my children home" (....)
  Calling for his sons and daughters, yeah -
  calling all his children round."
  Is it because Christmas is approaching again? Does he want to re-experience this feeling of alliance with his children who left home many years ago? Or does he realize that his life is coming to an end?
  "Old man he's asleep now. Got appointments to keep now. Dreaming of his sons and daughters, and proving -
  proving that the blood is strong".

• In the third stanza the perspective changes from the one who is calling (the old man) to the ones who are called home. It becomes clear now that the sons and daughters he's calling for are we, the listeners! And what's more important: we can't ignore this call and recognise it immediately, no matter how far away from home we are, no matter how far removed we are from our roots, our traditions:
  "Sharp ears are tuned in to the drones and chanters warming.
  Mist blowing round some headland, somewhere in your memory.
  Everyone is from somewhere -
  even if you've never been there."
  Which raises the inevitable question who this old man is. A personification of "tradition" perhaps? Are we incited to pay respect to the deeper values, cariied through the ages in the guise of old traditons? At least that is what the next puzzling lines seem to suggest:
  "So take a minute to remember the part of you
  that might be the old man calling me".

• This desire for peace and harmony expressed in the first two stanzas echoes through in the lines:
  "How many wars you're fighting out there, this winter's morning?
  Maybe it's always time for another Christmas song."

• " ....... drones and chanters": the bass-pipes (or its continuous note) and the melody-pipes of the bagpipe.
  * Jan Voorbij

• On "Another Christmas Song", you wonder who the "Old Man" is. Ian has for years used that phrase to denote God (e.g. "Hope the Old Man's got his face on, He better be some quick change artist" from "Roots to Branches", and others). I think reading the lyric this way gives the entire song deeper meaning, ex: the Old Man calling all his children round, calling all his children home, etc.
  * Liam Moriarty

• The Old Man referenced in Another Christmas Song refers to a mountain on the Isle of Skye by that name. I've always taken the song to be about the human desire to feel rooted; in the song, Ian is considering the many generations of emigrants who have left Skye and been scattered all over the world. Some are staying connected by long distance phone, while others, who have lost conscious connection with the island nonetheless feel the pull, or the call, of the Old Man. It is a wonderful song about emigration and connection to a place even for generations after the original emigration. Although the song specifically is connected to Skye, and similar feelings are found among Scots in places like Nova Scotia, the theme that the song expresses is particularly common to the Irish American sense of place.
  * John White  
  
  

The Whalers Dues

• This theme surfaces most brutally in 'The Whaler's Dues'. This man is proud of what he is ("And behind stand generations of hard hunting men") but suddenly finds that the world has changed, and his family trade, without him noticing, has become public enemy number one. "Are you with me (...) can you forgive me?" he asks, but the answer comes back, yelled in chorus: "No!". Again, just as in 'The rattlesnake trail' this man finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and society leaves him (pardon the pun) high and dry. Unlike the protagonist of 'Rattlesnake', however, this man is too old to change himself or his environment, and can only turn to bitterness (the ironic "Now I'm old and I sit landlocked in a back-country jail to reflect on all of my sins and the death of the whale"), and longing for a time that is forever passed, and possibly never existed ("Send me back down the ages. Put me to sea once again, when the oceans were full yes, and men would be men") - compare 'Thick as a brick's: 'Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth, Draw the lace and black curtains and shut out the whole truth'.
  'The Whaler's Dues', in fact contains the lines which may hold the key to the whole album: "Money speaks, soft hearts lose, the truth only whispers".
  * Julian Burnell
  
  

Big Riff And Mando

• After "Kissing Willie" this is the second humorous song of the album dealing with the haphazard life in a band. I suspect that this song somehow parodies the long musical relationship between Ian and Martin: Ian with his preference for acoustic instruments like the mandolin, bouzouki, balalaika etc. being Mando, while Big Riff would suit Martin and his electric guitars.
  * Jan Voorbij

• I read "Big Riff and Mando" as a literal telling of something that happened to the band on tour in the US. Someone ("Big Riff, rough boy, wants to be a singer in a band. A little slow in the brain box, but he had a quick right hand.") stole Martin's mandolin from backstage ("Marty loved the sound of the stolen mandolin"), then called the band while they were on a radio show ("Ringing on the radio, got a proposition for those English boys."), saying he'd return the instrument if they let him sing lead during their show ("Give you back the mando if you let the singer sing tonight"). The band agreed, but had police on hand and when Big Riff showed to collect his prize, the cops were there to get him. He escaped, but left the mandolin behind. That's the way the lyrics go, and I've always been curious to find out the actual details of the incident (where it happened, did they ever catch the thief, etc).

• "... a humbucking top line": A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pick-up, the gadget that turns the string's vibration into electric impulses so it can be amplified. Humbuckers were surpassed in the eighties by newer technology, but many electric guitar players like the raunchier sound they get from the humbucker and still choose to use them for certain types of music. A "humbucking top-line" would be a hard, crunchy lead riff on the electric guitar.
  * Liam Moriarty
  
  

Strange Avenues

• And, of course, the whole thing is rounded off with 'Strange Avenues'. Again, we're not just looking at loneliness, but the bitter conviction that you don't belong and others are having a much better time of things: "and everywhere is Main Street, in the winter sun" - if everywhere is Main Street, surely everything's bright and glitzy, full of activity, alluring and happy? Not if you're on the outside, unable to take part because you're not rich/young/pretty/smart enough. In fact, when that's the case, the brighter the city lights, the worse you feel.
  * Julian Burnell

• This song in my opinion is one of the greatest Anderson ever wrote. After a long and very dramatic intro, the music almost dies down to make us focus on the lyrics. The song expresses an intense feeling of loneliness and alienation, coming to a climax in the heartrending line: "Shall I make us both feel good? And would a dollar do?" and the universal "Are you ever lonely, just like me? ".
  A similar feeling is evoked in "White Innocence" from the Catfish Rising album.
  I'm under the impression that this song is in some way autobiographical and deals with the early Tull-years of extensive touring, an the inevitable being away from home and loved ones for months.

• "Looking like a record cover from 1971": for who didn't get it: this is an obvious reference to the Aqualung -album.
  * Jan Voorbij
  

• Jan suggests that this song is about Ian Anderson (the song-
  writer/singer) touring with his band. Firstly, he seems to be disoriented, everywhere looks the same. That's often a feeling you get when you are in a new and strange place. This obviously isn't his home town. He is feeling very isolated because he doesn't know anyone. Another reason I think that this is about being on tour is because of all the references he makes to his early album, Aqualung. 
  
  "Looking like a a record cover from 1971" : 
  1971 is the year Jethro Tull put out their Aqualung album which features a very shabby-looking homeless person (who looks remarkably like Ian Anderson ;)) on the cover. This is obviously dealing with a theme of being 'left behind' by society. Ian Anderson, the narrator, emphathises with this bum because they are both outcasts. I think he really hammers in the point by linning his wino's coat with the "money section" of a newspaper. While everyone else is reading to find out how their stocks are doing, the poor wino simply lines his coat with it. 

• 
  "Shall I make us both feel good? And would a dollar do?" 
  In this line, he is obviously commenting on the rich/poor relationship. He is talking to the homeless person from the comfort of his warm limo. He seems to think that the wino only needs a dollar to feel good. He is so convinced of this that giving the wino a dollar makes himself feel like he is being this super generous guy and makes him feel good about himself. But he doesn't seem to understand that it would take so much more than just a dollar to make this homeless guy happy. 
  
  "But in your streets, I have no credit rating 
  and it might not take a lot to be alone just like you." 
  In these next lines, however, he seems to realise the similarities between himself and the homeless man. Both are outcasts. Here, no one knows him, he has no friends to let him have stuff on a tab. He understands that the only thing seperating him from the wino is money. It is the only thing that makes him a different person. He recongnises this and seems to understand that the wino's problems don't come from a lack of money. 
  
  "Heading up and out now, from your rock island. 
  Really good to have had you here with me." 
  The album's entire theme is about isolation from society. Beind forced away from home and into a strange place with no friendly people. Ian Anderson describes this feeling in an abstract way in the song "Rock Island." Basically, we each have our own island made of rock. It's bare, dismal, and there is no escape. To quote from the song: "And when you finally dry wood, the tide rolls in." Well in these lines, he has 
  let this wino into his personal space, onto his 'rock island.' By doing this, both have had some company. This is what the wino wanted, not just "a dollar." The narrator is so glad to have someone to talk to, some human contact. 
  
  And the final, poignant line: "Are you ever lonely, just like me?" Well 
  of course he is. We are all lonely sometimes. And I think what the 
  narrator is saying is that we can all bond like he did with the wino. 
  We can all escape that 'rock island' prison if we just would express 
  some goodwill and humanity towards each other, let each other in. We 
  all have this thing, this loneliness in common.
  * Marlowe Peck

• 
  

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)