The one classical composition Ian Anderson stole from: “Stuck in my brain”
Every aspiring musician has that one moment when they fall in love with music. Although most artists might claim to have a specific show that sealed the deal or a particular moment in a song they love, it’s enough for them to restructure their lives around trying to make music that sounds anywhere near what they heard as a kid. And while Ian Anderson may have had more ambitious dreams than the average rock frontman with Jethro Tull, he will forever have pieces that will never leave his repertoire.
Then again, not everything that Tull did was meant to be taken all that seriously. The music behind them was always the most adventurous thing that anyone had ever heard, but listening to them in the context of an album like Thick as a Brick, it’s like Anderson was intentionally trying to screw with people through comedy, even joking at the beginning of the album that he doesn’t mind if a bunch of people sit this one out.
But they weren’t messing around for a second whenever they kicked into high gear. These were carefully constructed pieces that most people would have needed years of practice to even hope to achieve, but even by rock and roll standards, the idea of Anderson breaking out the flute was an odd choice for anyone still listening to Led Zeppelin or Cream.
The flute wasn’t an uncommon instrument in the world of rock, either. King Crimson had used it a fair amount of times and even The Beatles had a few tunes that broke out the woodwinds, but since Anderson knew he was never going to improve on what Eric Clapton did behind the fretboard, he figured he would try to school everyone on a completely different level when making his masterpieces.
When looking at Jethro Tull’s classics, though, not everything is exactly what people would call rock and roll. There are pieces that sound like they could fit on any other rock record, but there are times when the band can make something on the level of classical music like Mozart or Beethoven. And given that they covered Bach on one of their first albums, it’s not like that was an accident.
Although Bach’s ‘Bouree’ has been lauded over the years for being one of his finest compositions, Tull’s rendition of the song was something Anderson needed to get out of his head, saying, “I was fortunate enough to hear ‘Bouree’ daily through the floor of my apartment, because a music student was busy practising on his classical guitar. So ‘Bouree’ was stuck in my brain when I was looking for an instrumental piece. We had quite a lot of different arrangements of that piece, but I don’t necessarily remember exactly where it all fits in.”
Even if it didn’t have the most linear structure, it was novel for anyone to try to match what a classical composer did at the time. There might have been orchestrators around that time putting together arrangements for pop songs, but even in its primitive state, Jethro Tull’s version of ‘Bouree’ is far better than them attempting to go back to the old blues covers everyone else was doing.
And considering it was only on the band’s second album, ‘Bouree’ might as well have been a warning from them about where their music would be headed. It started as a way to flesh out an idea, but if they hadn’t had this under their belt, perhaps they wouldn’t have eventually made their way to tunes like ‘Aqualung’ later.
