An
introduction to "Stand Up"
In December 1968 after the release of
'This Was' and a visit to the BBC-studios, where
Jethro Tull recorded a rendition of T-Bone Walker's
'Stormy Monday Blues', Mick Abrahams left the band.
At this point Ian Anderson felt free to begin his
songwriting in earnest, free of the blues tradition.
'A Christmas Song', 'Love Story' and 'Living In The
Past' were the first examples of his song writing
capabilities that show the emerging of his own style,
using 'new' instruments like the mandolin. The
popularity of the band increased, they had their
first hits in the English Top 40 including the
subsequent TV-appearances and continued touring
extensively. Their first two gigs abroad took place
in Stockholm, 9 & 10 January early 1969, where
they opened for Jimi Hendrix. Three months of touring
the US followed: the first one of many to follow.
Tull opened for great bands like Led Zeppelin,
Fleetwood Mac, Blood, Sweat & Tears a.o. In this
period Ian wrote the songs for what would become the
new album 'Stand Up'. Recording sessions started in
April 1969. The album was released on August 1 and is
now by many fans considered to be the first real
Tull-album. It became an immediate success in the Uk
and the US and lateron in other countries as well.
'Stand Up' contains ten songs, all
written in a different style, a feature that is
present on most Tull-albums. But there are more: the
use of unconvential instruments such as the
balalaika, mandolin, hammond organ, strings and - of
course - Ian's characteristic flute playing. Another
feature is the sequence of the songs: rock songs
alternate with acoustic pieces. (We will see on later
albums how this alternation is applied within
the songs as well).
The flute has become the main instrument
on this album, playing both a solo and a supporting
role as well. Martin Barre - the new lead guitarist -
adds with his versatility an extra quality to the
album. When we look at the lyrics, they still are
quite plain, like on 'This Was' most of them being
love songs, but the poetic element and the
imagination of feelings in most of them are striking.
Anderson nowadays considers the songs as naïeve and
too self-centered, maybe because some of the songs on
this album (and on 'Benefit' for that matter) reflect
the difficult relationship he had with his parents as
a teen.
Though the band on this album moves away
from the straitjacket of the blues idiom, it still
has a very bluesy atmosphere in songs like 'A New Day
Yesterday', 'Back To The Family', 'Nothing Is Easy'
and 'For A Thousand Mothers'. 'Stand Up' and the next
album 'Benefit' show the transition from Jethro Tull
as a blues band to a band that is about to set it's
own standards when it comes to form of music and
contents/subjects of lyrics.
A photograph taken by Paul S. Smith
during one of the two
Jethro Tull gigs at Filmore East, New York, December
6, 1969.
Annotations
A New
Day Yesterday
Jeffrey
Goes To Leicester Square
The second song on the
album refers, like 'A Song For Jeffrey' to
Jeffrey Hammond, who joined Jethro Tull in
late 1970 as bass player. This Jeffrey will
turn up once more on the Benefit-album in the
song 'For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me'.
Jeffrey was a very
close friend of Ian. They had known each
other since their school days and Jeffrey
played several "pre-Tull" bands
from 1963 to 1967.
* Jan Voorbij
"Leicester Square" is one
of the cultural places in London with many
theaters, cinema's and artist-pubs.
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a
major place for entertainers of any sort to
"strut their stuff"; you will find
mimes, jugglers, musicians, and many more
"street artists" of all sorts at
work there. Musicians and other
performers commonly set up, put out a
hat or an open guitar case for donations, and
go for it, both as solo artists and as
groups. Active participation from the crowd
of onlookers is often encouraged (providing
they have something to offer; it's not
amateur nite) and it is certainly a
must-visit place for first-time (and
any-time) visitors to London. The best
time to go is week nights, esp. between
5:00pm and midnight. Most of the best
performers have gigs on weekends.
* Patrick Marks
 
Bourée
Ask people "Do you
know Jethro Tull?" and they will very
likely answer: "Yes, they had a hit with
Bourée." This piece of music was
inspired by a lute piece composed by Johann
Sebastian Bach. 'Bourée' does not only show
Ian's improvisational talents on flute, but
also brings Glenn Cornick's firm bass playing
to the fore. It consists of three parts: the
classic Bach theme, an improvisational part
featuring flute and bass, and a reprise of
the theme now played by two flutes.
What is the origin of
the well-known and very successful Tull-hit
'Bouree'? After some research I came up
with the following.
Ian Anderson's Bourée is indeed an
adaptation of a Johann Sebastian Bach
Bourrée. The original version by Bach can be
found as the fifth movement of the Suite in E
minor for Lute (BWV 996). A suite is a
popular 17th and 18th century musical form
consisting of a series of dances. Most of the
time a suite consists of four dance-forms:
the Allemande (originated in Germany), the
Courante (originated in France), the
Sarabande (originated in Spain) and the Gigue
(jig) (originated in England). Other
dance forms were the Minuet, the Gavotte, the
Polonaise, the Bourrée, and many others.
The Suite in E minor, where Jethro Tull's
Bourée can be found, is the earliest work
that Bach composed for the lute. It is
nick-named "Aufs Lautenwercke"
(From works for the Lute). It dates from the
middle of Bach's Weimar period
(1708-1717). Bach did not compose many
works for the lute and occasionally, in
Bach's own time, those works were performed
on the lute/harpsichord, a hybrid instrument
in whose construction Bach had assisted. Now
something more about the bourrée. The
correct spelling is 'Bourrée' with an
'accent aigu' on the first e.
Here is an exceprt from 'The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians' (London,
MacMillan, 1980, ISBN 0-333-23111-2.'; Vol.
3; pages 116-117). Article by Meredith Ellis
Little.
"Bourrée (Fr.; It. borea; Eng. boree,
borry).
A French folkdance, court dance and
instrumental form, which flourished form the
mid-17th century until the mid-18th. As
a folkdance it had many varieties, and dances
called bourree are still known in various
parts of France; in Berry, Languedoc,
Bourbonnais and Cantal the bourree is a
duple-metre dance, while in Limousin and the
Auvergne it is commonly in triple
metre. Many historians, including
Rousseau (1768), believed that the bourree
originated in the Auvergne as the
characteristic BRANLE of that region, but
others have suggested that Italian and
Spanish influences played a part in its
development. It is not certain if there
is a specific relationship between the duple
French folkdance and the court bourree.
Specific information on the bourrée as a
court dance is available only for the 18th
century, whence at least 24 choreographies
entitled bourree are extant, both for social
dancing and for theatrical use. The bourrée
was a fast duple-metre courtship dance, with
a mood described variously as 'gay' (Rousseau
1768) and 'content and self-composed'
(Matheson, 1739). The step pattern common to
all bourrees, which also occurred in other
French court dances, was the 'pas de bourree'
(Bourree step). It consists of a 'demi-coupe'
(half-cut), a 'plie' (bend) followed by an
'eleve' (rise on to the foot making the next
step), a plain step, and a small gentle
leap. These three steps occurred with
the first three crotchets of a bar, whether
in the duple metre of a bourrée or the
triple metre of a sarabande, where the 'pas
de bourrée' was also used.
If the small leap were replaced by a plain
step, the pattern resulting was called a
'fleuret'. The 'pas de bourree'
preceded the 'fleuret' historically, and is
somewhat more difficult to execute; by the
early 18th century, however the two steps
seem to have been used interchangeably,
according to the dancer's ability. The
bourrée as a social dance was a mixture of
'fleurets', 'pas de bourrées', leaps, hops,
and the 'tems de courante' (gesture
consisting of a bend, rise and slide at
places of repose. The stylized bourree
flourished as an instrumental form from the
early 17th century. Praetorius'
"Terpsichore" (1612) included a few
examples, all with quite simple phrasing and
a homophonic texture. The Kassel Manuscript
(ed. J. Ecorcheville, "Vingt suites
d'orchestre", 1906/R1970) also contains
a number of bourrées, often placed as the
second dance in a suite. As the order
of dances in a suite became more
conventionalized in the familiar
allemande-courante-sarabande group, the
bourrée continued to be included fairly
often, coming after the sarabande with other
less serious dances like the minuet and the
gavotte. In that position it was
included in orchestral suites by J.F.C.
Fisher, Johann Krieger, Georg Muffat and
Bach."
* Erik Arfeuille
Real Player video clip of "Bourée",
performed live at the Pistoia Blues Festival,
Italy, July 18, 1999. By kind permission of Laufi.
Back To The Family
The song is about the
double feeling in regard to the life the
narrator lives. On the one hand he is fed up
with the stressful life he lives, leaving him
no peace of mind:
"Living this life has its
problems,
so I think that I'll give it a break".
It makes him long for rest in the seclusion
of family life:
"where
no one can ring me at all".
On the other hand, once he
chooses to do so, he gets bored with what he
finds there, especially the dullness and
recognizes what made him leave in the first
place:
"Master's
in the counting house counting all his money.
Sister's sitting by the mirror she thinks her
hair looks funny".
It makes him wonder why he came back:
"And
here I am thinking to myself just wond'ring
what things to do."
To his own surprise he starts longing back
for the tough life in the city:
"I
think I enjoyed all my problems
Where didn't I get nothing for free."
and decides to go back as
"doing
nothing is bothering me"
and "
There's more fun
away from the family
get some action when I pour into town".
But from the moment he gets there, everything
he ran from starts all over again:
"Phone
keeps ringing all day long, I got no time for
thinking.
And every day has the same old way of giving
me to much to do."
Does this song refer to
Jethro Tull's heavily touring in 1969, when
they performed in many US-cities, and the
pressure of writing in the mean time a set of
new songs to record when back home? And the
constant tension caused by the frequent
illness of the band members and tour proceeds
that did not cover expenses? Clive Bunker
noted that Ian quickly became dissillusioned
with life on the road. He felt the constant
pressure of being the singer, songwriter,
frontman and leader of the band. There are
more explicit references regarding this
matter on the Benefit album, as we will see.
* Jan Voorbij
"Master's
in the counting house counting all his money."
- This comes from the children's rhyme "Sing a Song of
Sixpence", the original line being "The king was in
his counting house, counting out his money". I don't
think the term "counting house" has been used for at
least 100 years, and is only now familiar because of "Sing
a Song of Sixpence". The "Counting House" pub
in Blackpool was only called this fairly recently when it was
converted from a bank; it was not so named at the time the
song was written.
* Alan Jolley
-
Ian
Anderson ran away from home at 16. I believe this song is
about that specific period, before the fame, when he bounced
back and forth between St. Annes and Blackpool. This was a
mysterious, transitional time for him and remains a big part
of the untold story. I believe that master in The
Counting House
is clearly his father, and it is no coincidence that there
is a building called The Counting House on the Blackpool
shore.
* Michael Megerian
Continuation
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Introduction 