An introduction to
"The Jethro Tull Christmas Album"

Ian's Introduction

Two days before Christmas 2002, I received an e-mail from Fuel 2000 record company boss Len Fico suggesting the improbable scenario of a dedicated Tull Christmas album for the following year.

Although taken aback for a moment, I remembered half-formed plans from some years ago for a Christmas-related set of songs and tunes and so quickly offered, “Give me 24 hours and I’ll come back to you with a track list and running order.”

And I did. Well, the track list anyway. The running order always depends on varying tempos, song keys and subject matter. 

If you liked Bourée and the Songs From The Wood record, you will love this Jethro Tull Christmas Album. The aim was to find some uplifting traditional Christmas Carols, some new songs and to re-record some old Tull pieces on the Christmas topic. 

As I was working at the same time on a solo album, I had to off-load some of the studio production and sessions to other participants. Doane Perry did his drum stuff in LA while the UK sessions featured guest drummer James Duncan and, of course, Jonathan Noyce on bass. Ex bassist, Dave Pegg, dropped by to play on a couple of songs and Andrew Giddings used his studio to record his parts and Martin Barre’s overdubs. I then pulled it all together and mixed down the various line-ups and sessions in my studio at the last moment.

My views on Christmas? Well, I’m not exactly a practising paid-up Christian but I have grown up and lived with a so-called Christian society for 55 years and still feel great warmth for the nostalgia, festive occasion and family togetherness, so much a part of that time of year. Maybe without Christmas we would have that much less to celebrate and enjoy in this troubled old world. But it’s really all the Winter Solstice and the re-birth of nature overlaid with the common sense and righteous teachings of Mr. C. 

A Christmas in this modern world should, in my view, accommodate the leisure needs and affections of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics, as well as Fido the family dog and Felix the cat. Throw in a few lost cousins and that dreadful man from next door and you have it! Sip the sloe gin, pull a cracker (so long as she’s not the daughter of that dreadful man from next door), kiss and cuddle under the mistletoe, toss Vegan disciplines aside, gobble the turkey (steady on, now) and have a therapeutic respite from the rigours of daily life. 

Christmas – an aspirin for the soul or cold-turkey celebration of the birth and life of Christ? It has to be a measured bit of both, doesn’t it? 

And, if you can cope with it, a Happy New Year.

* Ian Anderson

Annotations

Birthday Card At Christmas

Ian Anderson Vocals, flute, acoustic guitars
Martin Barre Electric guitar
Andrew Giddings Keyboards and bass
Doane Perry Drums

My daughter Gael, like millions of other unfortunates, celebrates her birthday within a gnat’s whisker of Christmas. Overshadowed by the Great Occasion, such birthdays can be flat, perfunctory and fleetingly token in their uneventful passing. 

The daunting party and festive celebration of the Christian calendar overshadows too, some might argue, the humble birthday of one Mr. J. Christ. 

Funny old 25ths, Decembers… … …

Holly Herald

The Holly And The Ivy (Trad.) / Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (F. Mendelssohn) 
Instrumental medley arranged and developed by Ian Anderson)

Ian Anderson: flute
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards and accordion 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: drums

A Christmas Song

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, mandolin
Martin Barre: acoustic guitar
Andrew Giddings: organ
David Pegg: mandolin
James Duncan: percussion

Originally released on the Living In The Past album (1972).

When you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties
You'll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump
You're missing the point I'm sure does not need making:
The Christmas spirit is not what you drink.

I don't really agree. It's mentioned, certainly, but I think the song is 90% about the hypocrisy and contradictions of modern, commercial Christmases and the spiritual 'real' meaning of the festival. Alcohol is only mentioned in one line of the song, and the spoken humourous comment at the end is an admission that Ian isn't a Puritan watching from the outside - he wants a drink, too! I've never thought of Ian as anti-alcohol. Definitely anti-drug, particularly anti-cannabis, but he doesn't seem adverse to a quiet drink. I understand him being hostile to drunkenness, but that's a common attitude. It's important to distinguish the sources of intoxication!  If he was anti-alcohol, his comments in the 20th Anniversary video, about visiting his local pub and hoping he'd still be able to have a quiet drink with his fans, wouldn't make sense. Peggy famously drinks rather a lot, so why did Ian employ him for so long if he was anti-alcohol?  Ian publicly joked about Peggy's drinking habits in numerous concerts and interviews, and I think the only memorable quote from Peggy from his time with Tull was 'Success is being locked in the pub at closing time'.  The album title 'Nightcap' and its graphics have a little to do with alcohol....

One point about this song is that the tune and lyrics of the first few lines are from a traditional Christmas carol.  I learned the carol when I was about 5 years old; presumably Ian did too!  The first verse is:      
"Once in  royal David's city
stood a lonely cattle shed,
where a mother held her baby,
in a manger for a bed."
See An Online Christmas Songbook if you want the full lyrics and sheet music.
* Neil R. Thomason

"A Christmas Song" is also a work that exists in a strong historical framework because it is presented as a kind of Christmas carol. Caroling is perhaps the oldest surviving English mid-winter tradition (Lloyd 98). It originated as a \par pagan ceremony of ring-dancing (118). Clearly Ian has changed the tone of the traditional Christmas carol, and that has a psychological impact that is difficult to measure. As a pagan tradition, caroling worked a kind of magic of rejuvenation: the winter was a dead time, and to insure the resurrection of the world in spring, the carolers would come to offer their songs and to take their reward (102). The carolers offered blessings of bountiful harvests, and in exchange, those receiving the carol would offer up some of their wealth - in either food or money - as a sort of mid-winter sacrifice (102). The rite is a product of an agricultural society in which the forces of nature need to be interacted with at a magical level in order to insure the survival of all. Ian's use of the carol form invokes strong connotations to anyone familiar with the holiday or with caroling. His song implies the loss of ties to ther meaning of the festivities. He says:

"How can you laugh when your own mother is hungry
and how can you smile when your reasons for smiling are wrong?".

I believe that the whole song is to be examined on a whole, not each line picked apart and analyzed as carrying its own individual significance. The song is almost like beign a third party watching a character Ian plays interacting with a room full of Christmas partiers.
The intensity of the self-righteousness  of the narrator's words and their severity rise with the music, starting out sweet and low as are the Biblical lyrics. "Once in royal David's city", and ending angry, loud and full of threat, as the last statement is made.
Certain Christians have taken the meaning of their religion as something to bash over the heads of the "Sinners". The narrator wastes no time in getting there! The party, the food, the "Christmas spirit" that is "not what you drink"; in the eyes of the narrator, all are not what one should partake in if you were really a Christian. Why? (as the music escalates) The narrator takes it to a new gloomy, accusational level that has nothing to do with Christianity or Christmas; Because you're having fun while "your own mother's hungry" (and) "your reasons for smiling are wrong"! At the appex of the angry, depressing rant, the zealot says, "Remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas Song"!
Some people want power in the name of Christ or whomever, and they just want to use that power as a bludgeon to ruin it for everyone. This attitude is not uncommonly found in puritanical Christian societies that created witch hunts and punishments for ridiculous "sins" that the residents were accused. 
I picture Ian's character singing this to a room full of partiers, and as he makes his way down the hall, the gloom he spreads causes everyone to flee, upset and unhappy. After the music has risen and his message made clear, the narrator, alone in the party hall, asks Santa for that which he has damned everone else. "Hey, Santa, pass us that bottle willya?"

I mean, hey, even if he is speaking the words of Devout Importance and making everyone else miserable, he's only human, right?
* Fred Swan

Another Christmas Song

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums
Andrew Giddings: keyboards
David Pegg: bass guitar

Originally released on the Rock Island album (1989).

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

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Ian Anderson: flute
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: Drums

Originally released on the Bursting Out Live album (1978).

Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, mandolin
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums and percussion
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, bass

'Jack Frost' is not really an important part of folk myth as such, just an excuse for any child to dress up and play the part of 'Winter'. But it's a nice part of children's stories, very easy to draw a picture of this 'Mr. Frost' character!
I guess the song uses Jack Frost and the Crow to symbolise rather cruel figures, causing bad luck or just plain old discomfort. In the first two verses, they are speaking - telling us to count our blessings since there are people more unfortunate than ourselves at that time of year:
"Why not spare a thought this day for those who have no flame
to warm their bones at Christmas time?" (and)
" .... there's some who have no coin to save for turkey, wine of gifts".
Even though we 'curse' them, they are giving out some very humanitarian advice! Maybe they're not so bad after all, these two? Maybe they're just misunderstood? But in the final verse, they warn that we, too (the lucky ones) could end up spending Christmas in their 'dark' company one of these days:
"The Lord may find you wanting, let your good fortune disappear.
All homely conforts blown away and all that's left to show
is to share your joy at Christmas time
with Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow".
Good fortune may indeed disappear. And you get the feeling that Jack and the Crow wouldn't be too heart-broken about it!
When I was travelling in Skye in April 1988, I noticed a dead crow had been strung up on a tree -- clearly to deter other crows from attacking the new-born lambs. One of the many Beltane incantations used in Scotland runs:
"This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses. This to thee, preserve thou my sheep. This I give to thee, O fox! Spare thou my lambs. This to thee, O hooded crow! This to thee, O eagle!"
In other words, an offering was made to the good and bad creatures or spirits, in order to secure a fruitful and prosperous year ahead.
* Andy Jackson

In most of Britain, the Carrion Crow is a large, solitary, totally black bird. In Scotland, the same species has a grey back, and is called a "Hooded Crow", because of its appearence. I don't know the story behind the song, but crows are considered quite intelligent and I expect there are a few folk stories about them. Hooded Crows are fairly common on Skye, and fit the context. They are carrion birds which have been alleged to attack young lambs - they might be thought of as the Northern European equivalent of vultures. Thus, people tend not to think of their hardship at Christmas, as the song suggests. In parts of Scotland, a nickname for the bird is a 'Hoodie'. The bird on the cover of 'Crest Of A Knave' is a Hooded Crow.
* Neil R. Thomason

Recorded in June 1981 during "The Broadsword And The Beast" sessions, it was released as the B-side of the "Coronach" UK single in 1986.
In the introduction to "Broadsword And the Beast" I stated that the album reflects the atmosphere of crisis of the early eighties. Most of the songs include elements of uncertainty about the future, threat, fear or even dispair. That goes also for this 'Broadsword' song, as well as for 'Too Many Too', 'I'm Your Gun' and 'Down At The End Of Your Road'.
* Jan Voorbij

Last Man At The Party

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, piccolo, mandolin, percussion
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, accordion, bass

Weathercock

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, mandolin
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, bass

The final song of the Heavy Horses album appears here is again. It uses the concept of the weather as an analogy for the state of humanity in general:
"Did the cold wind bite you, did you face up to the fright (...)
Do you simply reflect the changes in the patterns of the sky (...),
Do you fight the rush of winter (...)".
This idea of 'the rush of winter' would be seized upon later in 1978 as Anderson wrote songs for Tull's next album. The hope for a better future is comes to the fore in :
"make this day bright. Put us in touch with your fair winds.(...)
Point the way to better days we can share with you."

Pavane
Composed by Gabriël Fauré, arranged and developed by Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson: flute, percussion
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: drums

First Snow On Brooklyn

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, acoustic guitar
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, bass
The Sturcz String Quartet, arranged Laszlo Bencker
- Gábor Csonka - 1st violin
- Péter Szilágyi - 2nd violin
- Gyula Benkö - viola
- András Sturcz - cello

Greensleeved

Trad. instrumental based on “Greensleeves”, arranged and developed by Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson: flute
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: drums

Fire At Midnight

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute, acoustic guitar
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, bass

Originally released on the Songs From The Wood album (1976).

The genius of Ian is to have placed this song at the end of the album, \line because it is the more hopeful of all, and because it acts as a closing \line scen e taking place at midnight, after "another working day" that might be \line the writing of the album, or the journey of the Whistler to teach people how \line to be happy. It inscribes itself in the continuity of the whole album and at \line the same time acts as a conclusion to it. I really think this is one of the \line most powerful songs Ian ever wrote, but it is a pity that it is so short!
* Fred Sowa

We Five Kings

Instrumental “We Three Kings” (Rev. J. Hopkins) arranged and developed by Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson: flute
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, accordion 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: drums

Ring Out Solstice Bells

Ian Anderson: vocals, flute
Martin Barre: electric guitar
Doane Perry: drums
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, bass

Originally released on the Songs From The Wood album (1976).

I have a piece of news for you: I think that Ian made a blunder here! He talks about Druids, but evidence has been shown that the Celtic peoples, of whom the Druids were the priests, did not celebrate Solstices. The Celts had only four days of celebration in the year, namely Samain on the eve of November (our actual Halloween), which was their New Year's Day, Imbolc on the Eve of February (which has become French "chandeleur"), Beltane on the eve of May, and finally Lughnasad on the eve of August. Other Pagan peoples, mainly gothic tribes, celebrated the Winter's solstice as Yule, but the Celts never did. Perhaps Ian meant to use "druid" in the sense of "priest", but the Druids were only Celtic, and derive their name from the same root as the Latin verb for "see": etymologically, Dru-vides means "the far-seeing," that is those that could see that which normal human beings cannot (i.e. the gods or any supernatural manifestation.)
Where Ian is right though is in qualifying the Sun of "sister" and not "father" (more rarely "brother") as we are accustomed to. In Celtic languages the Sun was feminine and the Moon masculine, because Celtic people considered the power of life to be feminine in nature, and that the sun's heat and light was the expression of the Mother Goddess's power to give life. The distinction between Mother Goddess and "sister Sun" does not contradict this, because for Celtic peoples the Goddess embodied all types of women, hence she was mother, sister and lover at the s ame time.
(For more detailed information about Celtic civilisation, mythology and beliefs, I recommend the books written by Jean Markale. He is a French writer who has written many books on the Celts as well as on the Arthurian Legend, and you can find many of his works translated into English. Look for titles such as The Celts : Uncovering the Mythic and Historic Origins of Western Culture, Woman of the Celts, The Druids : Celtic Priests of Nature, or The Great Goddess : Reverence of the Divine Feminine from the Paleolithic to the Present.
* Fred Sowa

Bourée

J. S. Bach, arranged and developed by Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson: flute
Martin Barre: guitars
Andrew Giddings: keyboards, accordion 
Jonathan Noyce: bass guitar
James Duncan: drum

Originally released on the Stand Up album (1969).

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



A Winter Snowscape

Martin Barre: guitars
Ian Anderson: flute
Andrew Giddings: keyboards