The 40-minute Jethro Tull song Ian Anderson wrote as a joke
If there is any one genre that can be accused of often taking itself far too seriously, it is progressive rock. From the moment that prog first emerged, towards the back end of the 1960s, it was typified by expansive and endlessly complex compositions that seemed to stretch on for hours, and its seeming lack of humour was something that Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson could not abide.
When Jethro Tull first emerged from the industrial surroundings of 1960s Blackpool, their sound was typically rooted in the blues but, as virtually every rock band around them became entranced by the mind-bending world of psychedelia and proto-prog, Anderson quickly began to expand his group’s sonic repertoire. By the time the 1970s began to dawn, the Tull’s output drew upon everything from far-out jazz to the blossoming world of hard rock, and prog wasn’t too far away, either.
Although they were never a band to stay in one place for too long, Jethro Tull’s prog-oriented material actually defined the sound of the band for many newfound listeners, placing them on the upper echelon of that emerging scene alongside the likes of Genesis or Yes. Unlike many of those London-centric outfits, though, Anderson managed to retain a sense of humour within his work, setting Jethro Tull apart from the ever-expanding landscape of prog outfits walking around as though their work was comparable to Mozart.
Humour became such an integral part of Jethro Tull’s existence, in fact, that one of their greatest triumphs during those early 1970s days, was written by Anderson almost entirely as a joke. “When I wrote Thick As A Brick I tried to approach it in a humorous and satirical way,” the songwriter revealed to Classic Rock in 2023.
Rather than containing ten or so individual tracks, like you might expect a regular album to, Thick As A Brick was one long continuous composition, with various differing subsections, which spanned the entire length of that 1972 album. You might expect that such an ambitious idea took months, perhaps even years, to perfect and record, but in Anderson’s experience, the 40-minute suite came together in a mere matter of moments.
“The whole idea happened very quickly,” he affirmed. “It was done in a fast and furious period of time. I’d just turn up at rehearsal every lunchtime with what I’d written that morning. Then the guys would dutifully grapple with it and we’d try to recap on what we did yesterday and the day before.” Before too long, then, the record was ready and rearing to go.
“By the end of 10 days, we’d rehearsed to a performance level all the elements of Thick As A Brick,” Anderson said. “And we went in and recorded it, literally in a few days. The album cover actually took us longer than the music itself.”
Despite being, at its core, a hastily thrown together joke, or a kind of pastiche on the prog rock landscape, Thick As A Brick quickly became one of the defining records of the prog age. Not only did it reach the top five of the UK album charts but, for many, it perfectly typified the appeal of prog’s ambition and expanse.
We’ve all told a few jokes in our lives, but I’d venture to guess that none of them have reached the dizzying heights, or indeed the lasting appeal, of that 1972 masterpiece.
