How did Jethro Tull get their name?
For reasons unknown, Jethro Tull has become one of the most widely misunderstood bands ever. If the confusion doesn’t stem from their seriousness, it concerns their genre or place in the industry, which isn’t always that easy to understand. Still, this speaks to their immense versatility when venturing out of the usual prog rock terrain and into ones with a little more diversity.
Led by charismatic flautist Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull became difficult to categorise because they never tried to do anything other than be authentic. With their blend of rock, jazz, and classical, they led prog-rock into a new era. As a result, it’s difficult to find any musician or band not influenced by them, even if by some distant measure through the subtle notes and sounds of their peers.
To others, Anderson held the kind of on-stage charm that others aspired to, with an aura that felt subtly playful beneath the layers of immense talent. This was perhaps best summarised by Geddy Lee, who once admitted he was “mesmerised by Ian Anderson” because, in his words, “His presentation was simply magical, and he delivered it with such a sense of humour and great style.”
Given their ongoing mystique, it’s no wonder this also played into their timeless appeal, notably with their refusal to conform or become the band whose moves everybody could predict. This also comes through in the name itself, which was initially chosen at random by their booking agent. Jethro Tull was actually an English 18th-century agriculturist and inventor of the seed drill whose name was borrowed by their manager as a stand-in for the countless other names they burnt through on rotation.
Why did Ian Anderson hate the band name?
Concerned that their consistent name change was hindering their chances of being booked, he made the decision to begin using Jethro Rull, although Anderson himself wasn’t initially aware that they were named after a real person. Before, they had used the names Navy Blue, Ian Henderson’s Bag o’ Nails, and Candy Coloured Rain, but neither of those seemed to stick, nor did they appropriately reflect who they were as a band.
Although adopting the new name worked wonders for their trajectory, Anderson was never that big of a fan, and even once said if he could change anything, he would go back and change the name to something far less historical. Admitting he wasn’t aware that it was “the name of a dead guy who invented the seed drill” and that he thought their agent “had made it up,” he also said he didn’t like the name because, in his words, “It’s a bit like being called Genghis Kahn or Robin Hood or Adolph Hitler or something.”
Although there are weirder, far more questionable band name origin stories than Jethro Tull, their name no doubt came to epitomise their idiosyncratic approach to music and their position at the intersection of tradition and innovation. In fact, the name is partially what earned them the privilege of descriptors like misunderstood, where confusion blossoms into an enigma, and the historical significance of such a reference establishes a ground for intellectual creation.
