Aqualung is Jethro Tull’s masterpiece and their best-selling record — a collision of hard-rock riffing and delicate English folk, held together by portraits of outsiders and by Ian Anderson’s unsparing doubts about organised religion. Released in 1971, it made them an arena band, and its title riff has never left the radio.

The short version

Aqualung (1971) is the fourth studio album by Jethro Tull, recorded at Island Studios and produced by Ian Anderson with Terry Ellis. It is the first with keyboardist John Evan as a full member, the first with bassist Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, and the last with founding drummer Clive Bunker. Home to ‘Aqualung,’ ‘Locomotive Breath’ and ‘Hymn 43,’ it reached the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic and has sold more than seven million copies.

A church, a chalk-marked bass and Led Zeppelin next door

The sessions were unpromising. Island’s brand-new studio was housed in a converted church, and Anderson found the room cold and echoing. Down the corridor, in the smaller studio, Led Zeppelin were recording their untitled fourth album. The new bassist posed a problem of his own: Jeffrey Hammond, an old friend of Anderson’s, was not a musician at all. The band bought him a Fender Jazz Bass, chalked guide marks along the fingerboard, and spent weeks in Anderson’s Highgate flat teaching him every part. By the time they reached the studio, Martin Barre recalled, the whole album was ingrained. And when Barre came to cut his solo on the title track, Jimmy Page wandered into the control room and waved — a greeting Barre dared not return.

The sound

Aqualung turns Jethro Tull inside out. This was an English folk band with rock decoration; here the order is reversed, and the most immediate music is electric and riff-driven. Martin Barre’s guitar is monumental, John Evan’s piano and organ get more room than on any other Tull record, and Clive Bunker drums with a swing the band would soon lose. Yet the record breathes: hard-rock riffing gives way to acoustic miniatures of real tenderness, and Ian Anderson’s flute and voice tie the two worlds together. Dee Palmer’s orchestral arrangements add weight without pomp. Folk, blues, hard rock and chamber music, held in perfect tension.

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The songs

The title track opens on one of rock’s great riffs, then falls away into an acoustic reverie. Its words were largely written by Anderson’s then wife, Jennie Franks, inspired by photographs she had taken of homeless men on the Thames Embankment, and it is the only song here not credited to Anderson alone. ‘Cross-Eyed Mary’ sketches another figure from the margins of London life. Then come the gentle ‘Cheap Day Return,’ the pastoral ‘Mother Goose’ and the lovely ‘Wond’ring Aloud.’ Side two opens with ‘My God,’ and closes with two staples: the thundering ‘Locomotive Breath,’ built up over a bass-drum track Anderson recorded alone, and ‘Wind-Up.’

Reception and legacy

Aqualung reached number four in Britain and number seven in America, the band’s first US Top 10, and turned Jethro Tull into a major touring act. Its second side questions organised religion directly, and the songs are set among beggars and outsiders; that combination has led almost everyone to call it a concept album. Ian Anderson has spent five decades denying it, insisting the album is simply a set of songs written from where his head was at the time. Martin Barre’s solo on the title track was later voted among the greatest ever recorded, and Iron Maiden, whose Steve Harris reveres the album, covered ‘Cross-Eyed Mary.’

The verdict

Aqualung is essential Jethro Tull, and the only place to start. It is the rare album that satisfies the rock listener and the progressive one alike: monstrous riffs, exquisite acoustic songs, a flute that sounds like nothing else, and lyrics with real teeth. Come for the immortal opening of the title track and the runaway momentum of ‘Locomotive Breath,’ stay for the quiet beauty of ‘Wond’ring Aloud’ and ‘Mother Goose,’ and hear a band discovering exactly how much they could do.

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