A Passion Play (Jethro Tull, 1973)

We bring 2015 to a belated close with the most perplexing of Jethro Tull albums. Just the prior year they had thrown their hat into the 1970's concept album phenomenon with Thick as a Brick. Musically it is top notch and the first full album to feature the "classic" Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, and "new" drummer Barriemore Barlow. It should be noted though that all of them except for Barre were in the proto-Tull band called the John Evan Smash, so it was more of a return than an entirely new lineup. However, scratch the surface of the album a bit and you will notice that the whole thing is a joke.

The problem with the following release is that it is most definitely not a joke. A Passion Play attempts to valiantly merge the serious messages of Aqualung with the structure of Thick as a Brick. The result is an album far more challenging than either of those. The cruel twist is that everybody seemed to want to funny Jethro Tull back again. The elaborate stage shows for A Passion Play were a bust and reviews of the album were scathing and sent the band reeling. They would temporarily leave the concept album club with their next album, Warchild, but then plunge back in to various degrees through the rest of the decade, but as a different-sounding type of band than they once were.

This album is still really difficult to fathom, as are many single-song albums. Other than the interlude ("The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles") the structure of the album is monolithic and hard to digest. Oddly enough, unlike Thick as a Brick, the band provided some guidance as to the four acts and sixteen parts (including the interlude), while the other album revealed nothing between the lines of the "St. Cleve Chronicle" and it was only in the age of iTunes that Ian Anderson decided to break it up into named parts. Also, the topic matter is deadly serious, no less than the nature of life and death itself. With apologies to Frank Zappa, between the complex musical structures and lyrics, there was no commercial potential here. Now, I'm not trying to say the album failed because it was not commercial enough, but rather there is no easy entry point to the album. Most other concept albums are album to find their sweet spot, some memorable hook, and belch out a single for the masses and lead them in to the entire work. Not so much here.

I had nervously avoided this album was quite a while, going with every other album by the band up through Warchild before considering this one. Undoubtedly there was a lot Jethro Tull had to share with the world and this is an important part of that, a magnum opus by the resurrected John Evan Smash featuring Martin Barre. However this is not the album anyone should start their Jethro Tull adventures with unless they are looking for an excuse to not bring them into their lives.