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Post by maddogfagin on Dec 29, 2011 18:51:56 GMT
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Post by steelmonkey on Dec 29, 2011 19:19:57 GMT
AKA Ian as the woodcutter in 'Lady Chatterly's Lover'...who apparently has more than a cap in his hand most of the time.
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Post by hawkmoth on Jan 1, 2012 23:10:00 GMT
Brilliant album 1st time ever saw Tull was on the SFTW tour feb 77? Completely blown away by the band at this time,real classic stuff here!!
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Post by futureshock on Jan 5, 2012 6:19:21 GMT
First time I saw Tull live was the year before, 1976, and do you think I would have predicted something like Songs From The Wood, after Too Old? No way, Jose! Give me that old tyme Taxi Grab!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2012 23:00:58 GMT
This was the album that shifted me from Tull fan to Tull fanatic. Unbelievable quantum leap after the somewhat leaden TOTRNR. Unbelievable vision and story-telling and perhaps the freshest playing of their whole career.
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Post by steelmonkey on Mar 9, 2012 23:31:23 GMT
When it came out...my first impression ( this was years before Tull rehabilitated and promoted fairfort, mind you) was...oh my God...Tull has turned into Steeleye Span with balls...not the worst thing in the world...but neverhteless surprising and requiring some getting used to. In retrospect it was the birth of a whole other dimension of Tull and an album to be loved and celebrated....but when it was new...not long after TOTRARTYTD was such a drop-off from Minstrel and War Child ( not to mention TAAB and APP)), it was rather confusing and momentarily distressing....a few listens, however, made it recognizable as Tull and far more than a Steeleye Span copy.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2012 14:08:19 GMT
The first Tull album I bought on the day of release. And from that day to this, I've been stunned at its vision, verve and execution. An absolute masterpiece from start to finish - and one that's never been given the wider recognition it deserved. Tull were also better than any other band at giving individual albums a feel and a character all of their own. There's even clear water (in my view) between SFTW and Heavy Horses - you couldn't actually swap tracks between the two without disrupting or diluting the overall flow/mood of either - and that distinctiveness is the mark of genius.
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Post by jimwbrill on Aug 5, 2012 22:27:41 GMT
I have followed Tull since 1969, went to see TAAB in '71 I believe in Jacksonville, FL, and there was somekind of religious experience amongst the sold out crowd that evening that turned the course of my life towards professional entertainment. I said to myself, "That's what I want to be able to do!" So, I have studied the music long, sang Life's A Long Song, and many more, and I will never understand how they did it!
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Post by maddogfagin on Aug 6, 2012 7:23:22 GMT
I have followed Tull since 1969, went to see TAAB in '71 I believe in Jacksonville, FL, and there was somekind of religious experience amongst the sold out crowd that evening that turned the course of my life towards professional entertainment. I said to myself, "That's what I want to be able to do!" So, I have studied the music long, sang Life's A Long Song, and many more, and I will never understand how they did it! Hi jimwbrill and welcome to The Jethro Tull Forum. There's lots to see and plenty of discussions to join in with so have a great time.
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Post by nonrabbit on Aug 6, 2012 9:51:39 GMT
I have followed Tull since 1969, went to see TAAB in '71 I believe in Jacksonville, FL, and there was somekind of religious experience amongst the sold out crowd that evening that turned the course of my life towards professional entertainment. I said to myself, "That's what I want to be able to do!" So, I have studied the music long, sang Life's A Long Song, and many more, and I will never understand how they did it! MAGIC... that's what I put it down too and glad to see some of it rubbed onto you and encouraged you to take up music Welcome to the Forum jimwbrill Have fun looking around and tell us more about your music Cheers nonrabbit i50.images obliterated by tinypic/34qshuf.gif[/IMG]
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Post by futureshock on Aug 12, 2012 21:33:48 GMT
Possibly Tull's best ever creative effort, on many fronts; in finding a style, in developing each song it's own way, in creative indulgence and application of each band member and instrument, in scope of careful consideration of all details, in creative development of vocal possibilities, in use of studio tricks that enhance without becoming novelty, in cohesion, in relentless quality, in going where other bands don't go, in relentless refinement.
Many say that Passion Play is Tull's best album effort, but my opinion is that with Songs From The Wood, Tull finally had the full range and quality of content to match it's capacity and ambition to create and perform. Everthing was peaking together with SFTW.
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gongsi
Prentice Jack
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Post by gongsi on Aug 15, 2012 6:52:56 GMT
I have studied the music long, sang Life's A Long Song, and many more, and I will never understand how they did it!
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Post by futureshock on Aug 15, 2012 19:07:15 GMT
I have studied the music long, sang Life's A Long Song, and many more, and I will never understand how they did it! Maybe they didn't. It could have been outsourced. Music is a business.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2013 11:33:12 GMT
« 10 Awesome Pop Pagan Moments (Part Two) Strange Days: Jethro Tull’s Songs From the Wood April 11, 2013 By Jason Mankey www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2013/04/strange-days-jethro-tulls-songs-from-the-wood/(I’ve always been fascinated by the occult overtones of Rock and Roll and Heavy Metal. Generally, the occult trappings in rock are nothing more than window dressing, but they can still be worth exploring. Strange Days is a series chronicling the truth about the occult and Paganism in rock. “Strange Days” runs when I get around to it, and future installments will look at The Doors and The Rolling Stones.) I’ve been a Jethro Tull fan since my late teens. My first exposure to the band was due to classic rock radio, which basically means Aqualung and possibly Thick As A Brick. Radio has done very few favors for the Tull over the years, essentially diminishing their output to just a small handful of tracks, usually the heavier ones. While Martin Barre (guitarist) is a genuine under-appreciated god of the 6-string, Tull was always about more than the heavy riffing on Lung. Jethro Tull, led by flutist lead-singer Ian Anderson, was extremely adventurous musically; weaving elements of folk, classical, and jazz into their general tapestry of hard and prog rock. The results were often mixed, but I’ll always give them credit for at least trying. Ian Anderson’s lyrics have always referenced religion and the occasional fantasy theme. Aqualung the album is full of them, with the especially scathing My God (“People what have you done locked Him in His golden cage. Made Him bend to your religion, Him resurrected from the grave”) as a prime example. Not surprisingly a lot of Pagans then and now have become big fans of Jethro Tull. Anderson’s lyrics both poke holes in Christianity and contain an earthy awareness that’s always been very appealing. Somehow Jethro Tull has managed to stake out a weird middle ground between prog and folk rock, two genres long-know for Pagan/occult/mythological themes. A lot of the Pagan appeal can be directly attributed to the album Songs From the Wood, a recording full of explicitly Pagan references. Popular music (and bands) often hint at Pagan themes and ideas, Songs From the Woods tackled them head on, with references to solstices, ley lines, Beltanes, and Green Men. The album is not entirely made up of Pagan-leaning tracks, but the whole thing has a kind of rustic vibe to it, conjuring up images of countryside English taverns and a more simple way of life. A lot of Tull fans describe the album as “acoustic,” but much of the record is full of electric guitar and bass, along with a compliment of synthesizers. David Palmer’s pipe-organ provides some Baroque-like atmosphere (not uncommon in Tull, Bouree had that feel back in 1969) to a lot of the proceedings, making Songs a real hodgepodge musically. There’s also a very definite “we recorded this in 1976″ (the album was released in February of 1977) type of vibe to some of the individual tracks. There’s a drum-beat in Hunter Girl that could have been picked up off the cutting room floor of the local disco-outlet store. A lot of Tull holds up really well in 2013, Songs From the Wood a little less so, at least to my ears. While the album contains a near-Christmas shout out in Ring Out Solstice Bells (and the song is definitely referencing winter: “Now is the solstice of the year, winter is the glad song that you hear”) I’ve always associated the album with Spring. Many of the strongest Pagan tracks (outside of Bells) contain Beltane and Spring references. My first listen to all of Songs as an album came in 2004, about a year after it was re-released with a few bonus tracks. Before that I’d heard a few individual songs (The Whistler and the title track), but not the entire record. When I first picked it up I was hoping it would make an appropriate Beltane soundtrack (the reissue does include a song called Beltane), perhaps with folky moments like Tull’s Life’s a Long Song or maybe the live album a Little Light Music. That wasn’t the case, but the Spring association has stuck over the years. Bonus tracks on re-issues are almost always disappointments. Songs are usually left off albums for a reason, and Beltane the song is no exception. Anderson will never be mistaken for one of classic rock’s greatest vocalists, and his voice is ill-suited for Beltane. Anderson sounds like he’s sneering through the whole song, and there’s almost a sinister vibe to it. A happy little ode to the springtime this is not. Mercifully things pick up on the more Pagan-like tracks that did make the album. Cup of Wonder-Jethro Tull The strongest Pagan track on the record to my mind has to be Cup of Wonder. The references to May Day are impossible to ignore (“May Day is the great day”) as are the references to the sacred cup of “crimson wonder.” It’s impossible for me to not to be captivated by a song full of the Green Man and a love of wine, but there’s a reason we aren’t all singing Cup of Wonder at every Beltane. The song contains some odd pauses, and the chorus never really comes together. Cup is not an ear-worm and doesn’t have the vibe of an around the campfire type of sing-a-long. It almost feels like a song “assembled” from various bits with the whole not quite sticking together cohesively. Crimson Wonder May I make my fond excuses for the lateness of the hour, but we accept your invitation, and we bring you Beltane’s flower. For the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track. And those who ancient lines did ley will heed the song that calls them back. Pass the word and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger. Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder. Ask the Green Man where he comes from, ask the cup that fills with red. Ask the old grey standing stones that show the sun its way to bed. Question all as to their ways, and learn the secrets that they hold. Walk the lines of nature’s palm crossed with silver and with gold. Pass the cup and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger. Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder. Join in black December’s sadness, lie in August’s welcome corn. Stir the cup that’s ever-filling with the blood of all that’s born. But the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track. And those who ancient lines did lay will heed this song that calls them back. Pass the word and pass the lady, pass the plate to all who hunger. Pass the wit of ancient wisdom, pass the cup of crimson wonder. To many Pagans the character of Jack-in-the-Green is an echo of the Green Man and other earthy/fertility type deities, and Anderson taps into this skillfully on the track of the same name. His Jack is both the spirit of the land and a figure that can be connected with. I’m not sure I’d call it an homage to deity, but Anderson’s Jack feels very real. Anderson has described himself as a pantheist in the past, and Jack the tune can certainly be interrupted that way, but for those of us who love the Green Man the song works as a decent ode to him. “Jack, do you never sleep, does the green still run deep in your heart? Or will these changing times, motorways, power lines, keep us apart? Well, I don’t think so, I saw some grass growing through the pavements today.” Jack-in-the-Green Jethro Tull Songs From the Wood received generally positive reviews when it was released in 1977, but it’s fared a little less well historically. Thick As a Brick, Aqualung, and War Child seem to be held in higher regard today, probably due to their commercial success at the time and more accessible singles. The Whistler and Ring Out Solstice Bells didn’t exactly set the pop charts on fire, though Solstice Bells still gets played over the Holidays from time to time. I feel like I’m being a bit down on the band once known as Jethro Toe (that’s the typo-name that appears on their first 45), but I don’t mean to be. Songs From the Wood is a good album, I just find it a bit scattered circa 2013. It remains essential Pagan listening, even if it lacks the sing-a-long qualities that would make it perfect for a Maypole Dance. Let me bring you songs from the wood: to make you feel much better than you could know. Dust you down from tip to toe. Show you how the garden grows. Hold you steady as you go. Join the chorus if you can: it'll make of you an honest man.
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tullist
Master Craftsman
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Post by tullist on Apr 11, 2013 15:45:18 GMT
That is an excellent and well informed review until one gets to the part where he says the record was generally well received in 1977. What? Where? Not in any of the music rags I happened upon. I recall a one star review in Rolling Stone, likely something hateful in NME, Melody Maker, Creem too. Someone drummed up the actual review I seem to recall from Rolling Stone, maybe it was two stars, the same year they reviewed a Tull show in the back from the SFTW tour entitled "Thick as Kitsch." Even among the still stadium sized fans those songs were in part something to be endured until they got to the "good stuff." I have the bellowing of impatient individuals on many downloaded shows of the period to prove it. On the other hand some of the worst of those instances I have evidence of was at an outdoor show in Cali someplace in 1970. People bellowing, not merely shouting, over Ian's commentary. As I recall he has some fun with it. Having heard hundreds of these things over time, though admittedly not loads of rock and roll, I can announce that within Tull's audience, if not necessarily fans of anything other than their thunder, if that, exist some of the rudest fans I have heard, though I admit the next Sab, Rush, Yes, many others boot I hear will be the first.
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Post by maddogfagin on Apr 15, 2013 16:07:12 GMT
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Post by JTull 007 on Apr 15, 2013 19:48:55 GMT
I love this part: "As Ian leads the listener through a computerized celebration of medieval droolings, the large black dog on the album cover demands a Milkbone." ;D
The other part which is a misinterpretation suggests "Hunting Girl" is about "the rape of a noble dish by a lowly nebbish". I believe it's just the opposite in terms of the story.
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Post by steelmonkey on Apr 16, 2013 2:05:09 GMT
Yeah...the girl comes out on top in that story....Creem was pretty famous for guys writing reviews mainly for self-amusement and psuedo-gonzo vibe above informing readers...Lester Bang cult, I guess.
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Post by morthoron on May 14, 2013 17:54:25 GMT
One of the best Tull albums as far as I'm concerned, and one of five I have given 5 star reviews for (SftW, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, Stand Up and Living in the Past). "Pibroch" and "Velvet Green" are both progressive rock at its best, and the importance of the folk dimensions of the album cannot be overstated. Songs like "The Whistler" and "Jack-in-the-Green" with their legendary airs evoke a mythical Brittania without borrowing from Child's Ballads like Fairport Convention did on their landmark folk-rock opus Liege & Lief. Steeleye Span and Fairport reiterated the past, albeit brilliantly, but Tull reinvented the English folk genre.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2013 18:00:49 GMT
This is the first Tull album I ever heard! I used to visit a neighbor and play chess (and other board games) with him. He has a gigantic record collection and we listened to a lot of stuff - some of which I liked, some I didn't... When "Songs from the Wood" came on, it made an immediate impression. It stood out from the rest because it was truly unique. I began to collect the back catalogue on vinyl, saw them live for the first time a few years later in 1984, and the rest is history!
The album is in my top five of all Tull albums, and will always hold a special place for me because it was my first exposure to them.
David
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Post by steelmonkey on May 15, 2013 3:21:18 GMT
My first day in Europe...summer of 77 not long after SFTW rocked my world, I found myself inebriated in Southeast Germany and sure enough saw: Poppies red and Roses filled with Summer rain !
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tullie
Prentice Jack
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Post by tullie on Mar 7, 2014 17:53:45 GMT
Can anybody help me with this query?
I am trying to sort out a bunch of JT cd's collected over many years...
I know of a catalogue number ACCD 1132 for SFTW as a CD
There is another which is CDP32 1132 2 for SFTW as a CD
What is the difference?
Any help gratefully received
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Post by maddogfagin on Mar 7, 2014 18:53:59 GMT
Can anybody help me with this query? I am trying to sort out a bunch of JT cd's collected over many years... I know of a catalogue number ACCD 1132 for SFTW as a CD There is another which is CDP32 1132 2 for SFTW as a CD What is the difference? Any help gratefully received This list is now out of date - I got it back around 2001 but it does list all the releases at that time for the "core albums" of which this is the entry for the CDs for SFTW. Hope it helps a bit. CD: Chrysalis (Capitol EMI) F2 21132, '85 (CA) Dora No 323 JPCD9706369, '97 (RU) Chrysalis (EMI) ACCD 1132, '86 (UK) Chrysalis (EMI) CDP32 1132-2, November '91 (UK) Chrysalis (EMI) ACCD 1132, '86 (US) Chrysalis (Columbia) VK 41132, ('??) (US) Chrysalis (EMI) F2 21132 (DIDX 444), ('??) (US) Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (EMI) UDCD 734 (UPC 0 15775 47342 3), October 13th, '98 (US), an ULTRADISC II 24-karat gold plated CD remastered from the original master tapes.
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tullie
Prentice Jack
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Post by tullie on Mar 7, 2014 19:39:27 GMT
That's great thanks .... now all I need to do is find a replacement copy of ACCD 1132 ... don't you just hate it when a CD box is empty ... and unexplained!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2014 21:55:42 GMT
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Post by steelmonkey on Mar 8, 2014 2:21:35 GMT
I have the US version...F2 21132....and I'm a listener not a collector...if you want that one to put in the CD box I can make a copy for myself and send it.
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Post by nonrabbit on Oct 23, 2014 16:38:34 GMT
i60.images obliterated by tinypic/2yytxm0.jpg[/IMG] I've been listening to Pibroch a lot for the sheer pleasure of it. It's a masterpiece. It's so typical of his "Skye period" and it's so clever in it's structure both musically and in the story based on a Scottish Lament. Lament : The purely instrumental lament is a common form in Pìobaireachd music for the Scottish bagpipes. A lament is a slow traditional song or pipe tune composed in mourning for a death. I think too that the man who looks through the window is also one of his most enigmatic characters. There's a light in the house in the wood in the valley. There's a thought in the head of the man. Who carries his dreams like the coat slung on his shoulder, Bringing you love in the cap in his hand. And each step he takes is one half of a lifetime: no word he would say could you understand. So he bundles his regrets into a gesture of sorrow, Bringing you love cap in hand. Catching breath as he looks through the dining-room window: candle lit table for two has been laid. Strange slippers by the fire. Strange boots in the hallway. Put my cap on my head. I turn and walk away.
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Post by steelmonkey on Oct 23, 2014 17:05:16 GMT
What person hasn't had that feeling...seeing the table for two and strange boots (or high heels) in the hallway? So universal, so real, so Tull.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2015 18:11:33 GMT
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Post by steelmonkey on Sept 15, 2015 19:00:24 GMT
I hope SW and Ian unearth some surprises....the 'extras' have been good.
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