The 1971 Jethro Tull guitar solo that Jimmy Page almost ruined
Imagine if your favourite song was missing your favourite part or had been dramatically altered somehow.
Take any song with a section that makes it instantly recognisable and mentally switch the instrument it was played on, and you enter this uncanny valley where the song feels familiar, but sounds a little bit off. Can you picture a world where the saxophone in Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’, for example, was instead played with the piano as the lead instrument? It’s easy to imagine, but it definitely sounds wrong.
This was almost true for Jethro Tull’s beloved 1971 track ‘Aqualung’, which is famed for its virtuosic guitar solo from Martin Barre. However, that display of improvised brilliance almost didn’t make the album and could have seen itself replaced with a flute solo instead, and it was all down to a surprise visit from none other than Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.
That near-miss highlights just how fragile some of rock’s most iconic moments really are. What ends up defining a song for generations can sometimes come down to timing, pressure, and a handful of takes in the studio. In an era before endless digital tinkering, decisions had to be made quickly, often forcing musicians to trust instinct over perfection.
It also underlines the broader dynamic within Jethro Tull at the time. While Ian Anderson’s flute and conceptual vision were central to the band’s identity, there was still space for other members to carve out defining contributions. Moments like Barre’s solo on ‘Aqualung’ helped balance the group’s sound, ensuring that their more experimental tendencies were grounded by flashes of raw, guitar-driven power.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, Jethro Tull were at the forefront of the UK’s progressive rock scene, merging elements of folk and hard rock to create their unique sound. Their bandleader, vocalist and flautist Ian Anderson was often the focal point of the group, noted for his vivid lyrical imagery and unusual stage presence that made him seem like something of a wide-eyed court jester. That being said, they were a band full to the brim with talent, and each member had something exceptional that they could bring to the table for their highly conceptual and sprawling records.
Aqualung, the band’s fourth album, is often regarded as the band at the peak of their powers, and the opening track from which the record takes its name is a bold statement of intent that launches the listener into the themes of spirituality and religion and the hybridised genre palette that the band make use of. Littered with unexpected jazzy chord changes over the top of a proto-metal riff, ‘Aqualung’ and its restlessness sits somewhere between Deep Purple and Cat Stevens in its own world – a world that only Jethro Tull could possibly inhabit.
While recording the album, Led Zeppelin happened to be in the studio next door working on Led Zeppelin IV, though the band had chosen not to distract themselves with this and instead chose to hunker down and employ a steadfast commitment to finishing the record. This often meant that members of the band were limited to the number of takes they could have before an idea was scrapped, the idea being that if it wasn’t good enough after two attempts, the best course of action would be to move onward.
With Martin Barre under significant pressure to commit a worthy guitar solo to tape in just a couple of goes, he realised that he had to bring his a-game into the studio that day. However, Jimmy Page was blissfully unaware of this fact, and his inopportune timing of a visit to the band meant that everything was almost derailed.
Barre recalled the nearly disastrous second take in an interview with Guitarist, saying: “I think it was take two – and if I hadn’t got it in two then it would have been a flute solo. But that’s when Jimmy Page […] came up to say hello.”
Realising that he was under pressure, he tried to hide the fact that Page’s sudden appearance flustered him, but that came at the cost of being rude to his uninvited guest. “He was in the control room window, waving madly. I was in the middle of the solo, and I thought, ‘Sorry, but I can’t stop.’ And I didn’t. I just turned my back. Which was a bit rude.”
It might seem a little bit brutal from Barre, but he had to play under brutal constraints where his part might have been binned if he hadn’t been so resilient – and the song is all the better because he managed to turn his back to Page.
