SONG OF THE DAY
“Wond’ring Aloud” by Jethro Tull (Aqualung, Island Records/ Reprise Records/ Chrysalis/Capitol , 1971). Written and composed by Ian Anderson.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
Aqualung is the fourth studio album by the rock band Jethro Tull.
– It was their first album with John Evan as a full-time member, their first with new bassist Jeffrey Hammond and last album featuring Clive Bunker on drums.
– Aqualung has sold over 15 million units worldwide according to Ian Anderson, and is thus Jethro Tull’s best selling album.
– In 2003, the album was ranked #337 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
– In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came #7 in its list of “40 Cosmic Rock Albums”.
– The album was one of the first to be recorded at the newly opened studios of Island Records in Basing Street, London. Led Zeppelin were mixing their untitled fourth album at the same time.
– There were two recording studios at the location; Led Zeppelin worked in the smaller studio while Tull got the larger, which was the main body of a converted church.
– In a stylistic departure from Jethro Tull’s earlier albums, many of Aqualung’s songs are primarily acoustic.
– Anderson claims his main inspirations for writing the album were Roy Harper and Bert Jansch.
– Anderson has consistently maintained that Aqualung is not a “concept album”. A 2005 interview included on Aqualung Live gives Anderson’s thoughts on the matter: “I always said at the time that this is not a concept album; this is just an album of varied songs of varied instrumentation and intensity in which three or four are the kind of keynote pieces for the album but it doesn’t make it a concept album. In my mind when it came to writing the next album, Thick as a Brick, was done very much in the sense of: ‘Whuh, if they thought Aqualung was a concept album, O-O-K, we’ll show you a concept album.’ And it was done as a kind of spoof, a send-up, of the concept album genre. … But Aqualung itself, in my mind was never a concept album. Just a bunch of songs.
– In April 1971, Aqualung peaked at #4 on the UK Album Chart; 26 years later it almost cracked the Top 50. It peaked at #7 on the Billboard Music Charts’ North American pop albums chart; the single “Hymn 43” hit #91 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
– Aqualung was one of only two Jethro Tull albums released in quadraphonic sound, the other being War Child.