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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2017 22:54:43 GMT
I would like it if IA wrote down his life's story because I would definitely read it.
Especially since it's the 50th anniversary of Tull.
Most of the information would probably already be covered elsewhere (interviews, other books, etc.) but I would like to read the comprehensive history of IA (and Tull) in book form in his own writing style.
What do you think?
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Post by JTull 007 on Aug 9, 2017 11:17:34 GMT
I would like it if IA wrote down his life's story because I would definitely read it. Especially since it's the 50th anniversary of Tull. Most of the information would probably already be covered elsewhere (interviews, other books, etc.) but I would like to read the comprehensive history of IA (and Tull) in book form in his own writing style. What do you think? In general Ian may not wish to have a book about himself until he retires. He may consider it like a last piece of his overall career which he feels is not finished and may wait.
I spoke to some of the TULL Crew in Atlanta last year. They believe Ian will not retire ever.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2018 19:00:46 GMT
The NEWS section near the top of this forum indicates that IA's memoirs may be published in 2019, after all of the hullabaloo of the 50th anniversary tour is over- I wonder.. Will there be a paperback edition (of this book), for the Boy Scout Manual?
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 1, 2018 18:47:04 GMT
Iv'e just been searching through some of Ian's letter's he wrote to me. Sent almost every day or every other day during the difficult and frustrating years before he made it and during the time Jethro Tull began to take off. I imagine that he is perceived in a very different way than these letters show him to be. Initially I was looking for the mention of the Richard Harris and MacArthur Park and the memory of how significant it was to Ian. No luck. Felt a little too sad and disappointed in the me he was writing to, to continue the search. I don't suppose it really matters but I don't think his memoirs would give much of an insight into how it really was for him in those very different but crucial times.
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 1, 2018 20:11:48 GMT
Iv'e just been searching through some of Ian's letter's he wrote to me. Sent almost every day or every other day during the difficult and frustrating years before he made it and during the time Jethro Tull began to take off. I imagine that he is perceived in a very different way than these letters show him to be. Initially I was looking for the mention of the Richard Harris and MacArthur Park and the memory of how significant it was to Ian. No luck. Felt a little too sad and disappointed in the me he was writing to, to continue the search. I don't suppose it really matters.. ... but I don't think his memoirs would give much of an insight into how it really was for him in those very different but crucial times.Good point and very true. That's the tricky thing about writing your autobiography (I suppose) - remembering how you really were and what your thought processes were all the years ago. You could also add a bit of fiction to the mix if you were so inclined - it's your book after all.
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 1, 2018 23:22:57 GMT
I know everybody perceives the truth differently but when you are young, in those formative years some are less afraid of the truth. Ian was indescribably brave and determined. So anything less than the truth from him would be a disappointment......at least to me.
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 2, 2018 19:28:41 GMT
I know everybody perceives the truth differently but when you are young, in those formative years some are less afraid of the truth. Ian was indescribably brave and determined. So anything less than the truth from him would be a disappointment......at least to me. I definitely agree. You knew him then -I only know the musician from watching quite a few interviews over the years and having read about his background ( what's out there) The only other link I have is that I kind of know the cut of his gib being Scottish myself. And although he's ten years older than me, I knew boys like him who were brought up with a similar background. There's secrets - like every family has, and I'm sure a lot of it would make for a good read but I don't think he'll reveal too much - if any. I always think he sounds quite false in his interviews, as if he's reading from a script, especially as he's got older. He never gives too much away - little snippets now and then but then he returns to the well-worn script. I don't mean it in a bad way - he has to be careful, but if you look at the interviews when he was young he's almost the opposite. Again, maybe that's the norm for a successful person who's been in the spotlight for a very long time or maybe he's always been a master of spin!
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 6, 2018 13:30:05 GMT
I know everybody perceives the truth differently but when you are young, in those formative years some are less afraid of the truth. Ian was indescribably brave and determined. So anything less than the truth from him would be a disappointment......at least to me. I definitely agree. You knew him then -I only know the musician from watching quite a few interviews over the years and having read about his background ( what's out there) The only other link I have is that I kind of know the cut of his gib being Scottish myself. And although he's ten years older than me, I knew boys like him who were brought up with a similar background. There's secrets - like every family has, and I'm sure a lot of it would make for a good read but I don't think he'll reveal too much - if any. I always think he sounds quite false in his interviews, as if he's reading from a script, especially as he's got older. He never gives too much away - little snippets now and then but then he returns to the well-worn script. I don't mean it in a bad way - he has to be careful, but if you look at the interviews when he was young he's almost the opposite. Again, maybe that's the norm for a successful person who's been in the spotlight for a very long time or maybe he's always been a master of spin! a bit to get back here.
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 6, 2018 14:16:00 GMT
Really muck up this posting thing
Nonrabbit you said
I don't think he'll reveal too much if any.
That put me in mind of something quite funny I read fairly recently. It was an interview with Ian and someone called 'Red Beard' about the album 'Homo Erraticus'. You would have to read the extract to know that I am not speaking out of turn. I landed on a section where Ian recalls his father's 'gay intolerance' and his father's fear of his son's 'feminine side' which Ian says was, 'soothed' apparently by a rather hilarious memory we shared. It caused quite a rumpus at the time. Ian's own recollection of this shared memory, left me with the impression that perhaps he had reinvented his younger self as a 'bit of a lad' which in my opinion could not be further from the truth. Perhaps in an effort to disguise, he mentions that his 'father' caught him on top of quote 'a rather attractive girl' when in fact the person who caught us was his 'mother'. He says that the girl had her skirt around her neck which thankfully was definitely a stretch of the imagination. His interpretation of this incident bought to mind one of those naughty Blackpool picture post cards. Artistic licence? Or was he not as he seemed in those days and made a regular habit of being caught by his parents? "Hey Dad here I am again being heterosexual with yet another rather attractive girl".
I would be wary of reading any biography. Likely find myself absent from part of my own history or possibly not able to recognise myself.
The other thing you said made me appreciate someone from here kindly alerting me to a filmed interview Ian did in a place I used to stay 'Burley Road' Kentish Town (think I spelt Burley wrong)
You said If you look at interviews he did when he was young he's almost the opposite.
At one time I was very keen to give back all the letters Ian wrote to me. I think firstly because I wanted to remind him of who he used to be (as you observed from those early interviews) and secondly because the letters contain early autobiographical information which no one else had accessed at that point and which I thought might be useful to him one day. Thirdly I did not want o keep the letters, yet understandably found difficulty in throwing them away.
Can't think why he asked me to continue holding on to them but he did.
The fame thing is a big subject for me. Later perhaps if you can stand my partly negative view on it.
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Post by conchis on Apr 6, 2018 18:30:15 GMT
The idea of an I.A. memoir appeals: he could probably write it without the assistance of a ghost writer.
BUT - I don't think Ian would be very candid. As has been noted, he is (or has become) a somewhat 'closed' personality and it would be against his nature to 'open up' in a public forum. There also seems to be a 'code of conduct' in Tull that band members don't speak ill of each other (if Iain is critical of certain band members, he always balances his comments with praise for their other talents and acknowledgement that he himself can be difficult to work with). No ratting on the regiment, in other words!
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Post by maddogfagin on Apr 7, 2018 7:06:22 GMT
The idea of an I.A. memoir appeals: he could probably write it without the assistance of a ghost writer. BUT - I don't think Ian would be very candid. As has been noted, he is (or has become) a somewhat 'closed' personality and it would be against his nature to 'open up' in a public forum. There also seems to be a 'code of conduct' in Tull that band members don't speak ill of each other (if Iain is critical of certain band members, he always balances his comments with praise for their other talents and acknowledgement that he himself can be difficult to work with). No ratting on the regiment, in other words! Hi Conchis and welcome along to the JT Forum Yes I reckon you're right about the code of conduct which prevails within Tull. It would be a bad situation if everybody was slagging off past members and IA has, mostly, only had good things to say about ex Tull members.
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 7, 2018 11:53:17 GMT
Can only speak for the early years and I don't recall Ian slagging off band members then either. There was a lot of good, edgy and very memorable humour, from all sides. He had real heartfelt affection for his band mates, especially Jeffrey. Nice to have been part of that for so long.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2018 20:41:10 GMT
I heard IA say, in an interview, that he communicates with the old band members about once a year-
He joked that it's usually around the time when he gives them their royalty cheques.
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 7, 2018 20:44:06 GMT
I heard IA say, in an interview, that he communicates with the old band members about once a year- He joked that it's usually around the time when he gives them their royalty cheques. How do you know he's joking!
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 7, 2018 20:46:15 GMT
Can only speak for the early years and I don't recall Ian slagging off band members then either. There was a lot of good, edgy and very memorable humour, from all sides. He had real heartfelt affection for his band mates, especially Jeffrey. Nice to have been part of that for so long. Did he mix with them more in the early days..on tour? The story is that he keeps himself to himself and has done for a long while
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 7, 2018 20:56:59 GMT
Really muck up this posting thing Nonrabbit you said I don't think he'll reveal too much if any. That put me in mind of something quite funny I read fairly recently. It was an interview with Ian and someone called 'Red Beard' about the album 'Homo Erraticus'. You would have to read the extract to know that I am not speaking out of turn. I landed on a section where Ian recalls his father's 'gay intolerance' and his father's fear of his son's 'feminine side' which Ian says was, 'soothed' apparently by a rather hilarious memory we shared. It caused quite a rumpus at the time. Ian's own recollection of this shared memory, left me with the impression that perhaps he had reinvented his younger self as a 'bit of a lad' which in my opinion could not be further from the truth. Perhaps in an effort to disguise, he mentions that his 'father' caught him on top of quote 'a rather attractive girl' when in fact the person who caught us was his 'mother'. He says that the girl had her skirt around her neck which thankfully was definitely a stretch of the imagination. His interpretation of this incident bought to mind one of those naughty Blackpool picture post cards. Artistic licence? Or was he not as he seemed in those days and made a regular habit of being caught by his parents? "Hey Dad here I am again being heterosexual with yet another rather attractive girl". I would be wary of reading any biography. Likely find myself absent from part of my own history or possibly not able to recognise myself. The other thing you said made me appreciate someone from here kindly alerting me to a filmed interview Ian did in a place I used to stay 'Burley Road' Kentish Town (think I spelt Burley wrong) You said If you look at interviews he did when he was young he's almost the opposite. At one time I was very keen to give back all the letters Ian wrote to me. I think firstly because I wanted to remind him of who he used to be (as you observed from those early interviews) and secondly because the letters contain early autobiographical information which no one else had accessed at that point and which I thought might be useful to him one day. Thirdly I did not want o keep the letters, yet understandably found difficulty in throwing them away. Can't think why he asked me to continue holding on to them but he did. The fame thing is a big subject for me. Later perhaps if you can stand my partly negative view on it. More than delighted to hear your views on 'fame' I was very happy to post that interview especially as it's from your time with Ian and you hadn't seen it before. Love your link with Ian's version of events, what actually happened and comparing it to a naughty seaside postcard!!! It's the brooding, puppy dog look and earnest answers of the youth that gets me Have you seen this one? Again more of the above and talks about his father?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2018 20:57:23 GMT
Can only speak for the early years and I don't recall Ian slagging off band members then either. There was a lot of good, edgy and very memorable humour, from all sides. He had real heartfelt affection for his band mates, especially Jeffrey. Nice to have been part of that for so long. Did he mix with them more in the early days..on tour? The story is that he keeps himself to himself and has done for a long while I know that you are not asking me, but he shared an small apartment (i.e. flat) with Glenn Cornick.
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Post by conchis on Apr 7, 2018 21:19:20 GMT
I think the band dynamic was established quite early on - certainly by the time Tony Iommi joined, ie Ian sitting at one table on his own and the others at another table.
Iommi also said something about the other band members being expected to stand up (ha!) when I.A. entered a room. This may (or may not) have been a joke.
I have a feeling Terry Ellis, an early believer in I.A.'s talent, played a role in encouraging his sense of 'separateness' from the others though I'm only working on a hunch here.
I also remember reading a comment that Elmsliegirl reported: Ian knew he 'had to make this work' as, unlike the others, he couldn't rely on his parents to come and bail him out.
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Post by bunkerfan on Apr 8, 2018 6:42:15 GMT
I have a feeling Terry Ellis, an early believer in I.A.'s talent, played a role in encouraging his sense of 'separateness' from the others though I'm only working on a hunch here. I think your 'hunch' is correct as you never see them together apart from on stage.
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Post by maddogfagin on Apr 8, 2018 6:49:32 GMT
I think the band dynamic was established quite early on - certainly by the time Tony Iommi joined, ie Ian sitting at one table on his own and the others at another table. Tommi also said something about the other band members being expected to stand up (ha!) when I.A. entered a room. This may (or may not) have been a joke. I have a feeling Terry Ellis, an early believer in I.A.'s talent, played a role in encouraging his sense of 'separateness' from the others though I'm only working on a hunch here. I also remember reading a comment that Elmsliegirl reported: Ian knew he 'had to make this work' as, unlike the others, he couldn't rely on his parents to come and bail him out. I would guess that Terry Ellis did have something to do with the detached attitude to other members of the band over the years and that this so called attitude has seeped into the Tull legend. However it could just be that this attitude is more to do with "making things right" for everybody (tour itinerary, setlists etc) more than trying to remain aloof from anyone else. IA certainly doesn't appear to suffer fools gladly but if he feels that a person is genuinely interested in what he's saying or doing then he opens up. You can get an idea of this from the many crap interviewers he has to deal with on the internet, TV and radio, and the fans who wait outside the backstage door and present him with a large number of albums to sign. That must just piss him off.
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 8, 2018 8:29:51 GMT
Did he mix with them more in the early days..on tour? The story is that he keeps himself to himself and has done for a long while I know that you are not asking me, but he shared an small apartment (i.e. flat) with Glenn Cornick. Yes, Emsliegirl mentioned that as well. Feel free to jump in at any time in any discussion Chester.
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Post by nonrabbit on Apr 8, 2018 8:35:45 GMT
Here's an interesting take on it. Performance anxiety: the secret life of the lead singer“You know, I think this piece should really be called Why Frontmen Need Psychologists!’ ’Cos if you want to put yourself out in front of people like this, there must be something wrong with you"
"You probably think he’s joking. But after speaking to a range of men and women about the pros and cons of the job, an unexpected pattern emerges: hardly any of them wanted to front a band, most of them find the job stressful and almost all of them would be happy to lurk in the shadows instead – playing a bit of bass guitar, perhaps, or messing about on a keyboard somewhere just to the right of the drummer. If your stereotype of a frontperson is that of a raging extrovert who has dreamed since childhood of being thrust into the centre of the stage, then think again. A lot of them are riddled with insecurities."Full article
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2018 9:32:33 GMT
In a similar way, most comedians are very SHY: So many people say, “Oh, I would do comedy, but I’m too shy.” Sorry, but that excuse is made of NOPE. Comedians ARE shy. Why do you think they like to talk on stage, or wear giant funny mustaches? So they don’t have to talk TO PEOPLE. Carol Burnett, who describes herself as shy, has said she can perform only when she’s in character. Joan Rivers–yes, Joan Rivers—has described feeling uncomfortable chatting in real life, one on one. “Even though standup and comedy seem like mediums that lend themselves to the extroverted, most comedians are actually shy or grapple with some form of social anxiety,” writes self-described shy comedian Scarlet Meyer. “Just because we have confidence on stage doesn’t mean it follows us off stage.” Read the full article: www.goldcomedy.com/resources/6-reasons-why-shy-people-great-at-comedy/
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 8, 2018 9:37:46 GMT
lots of inspiring things here. Looking after little crazy kids all day but hope to be back later.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Apr 8, 2018 9:44:13 GMT
There was an interesting TV program on the BBC a few months back. It was about Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert who can perform on stage in front of thousands but is too shy to go into coffee shops. etc. Unfortunately the complete program has now been taken off the BBC but the attached article tells you a bit about it (you can open the write up to read more). www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09pb7jq
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Post by elmsliegirl on Apr 11, 2018 14:46:11 GMT
Chester said. I heard IA, say in an interview, that he communicates with the old band members about once a year. He joked that it's around the time when he gives them their royalty checks.
Non rabbit said. How do you know he is joking.
It is my uninformed guess there might be a fine line. The opposite of the rather consistent dynamic I saw in Ian towards the others in the early years. In my opinion he was notably inspired by the people around him and enjoyed their company tremendously. Not just as musicians but as individuals, school mates and friends. I can only speak for myself but I feel he valued others and had a capacity to understand and respond to them in a unique way that gave them a feeling of worth. I don't know if that 'worth' was something he helped to create or encouraged to surface. It was a gift that I think is hard to come by from others. I personally felt the most creative and confident when I was with him.
Non rabbit asked. Did he mix with them more in the early days.......
Absolutely! It would have been faintly ludicrous if Ian were to be sitting separately from the rest of the band. It could have been something Jeffrey might have done for some weird, eccentric reason but the rest of the band normally found his off the wall behaviour tremendously amusing. I am just trying to imagine Ian putting me on a table on my own, saying "Look I am very special, so I am going to sit over here away from you' Or perhaps if we'd took to lounging somewhere in the back of the transit van, cordoned off from everyone else, wearing our Lord and Lady hats.
Everyone was equal, helping to build the foundations of the band in their own individual way. The list of good will. is too long to write about here. In my memory, being separate didn't cross anyones mind. If it came into play later, when others got involved (as one band member told me it did) then to my mind that is a bit of a shame.
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Post by earsoftin on Apr 11, 2018 15:01:42 GMT
Really muck up this posting thing Nonrabbit you said I don't think he'll reveal too much if any. That put me in mind of something quite funny I read fairly recently. It was an interview with Ian and someone called 'Red Beard' about the album 'Homo Erraticus'. You would have to read the extract to know that I am not speaking out of turn. I landed on a section where Ian recalls his father's 'gay intolerance' and his father's fear of his son's 'feminine side' which Ian says was, 'soothed' apparently by a rather hilarious memory we shared. It caused quite a rumpus at the time. Ian's own recollection of this shared memory, left me with the impression that perhaps he had reinvented his younger self as a 'bit of a lad' which in my opinion could not be further from the truth. Perhaps in an effort to disguise, he mentions that his 'father' caught him on top of quote 'a rather attractive girl' when in fact the person who caught us was his 'mother'. He says that the girl had her skirt around her neck which thankfully was definitely a stretch of the imagination. His interpretation of this incident bought to mind one of those naughty Blackpool picture post cards. Artistic licence? Or was he not as he seemed in those days and made a regular habit of being caught by his parents? "Hey Dad here I am again being heterosexual with yet another rather attractive girl". I would be wary of reading any biography. Likely find myself absent from part of my own history or possibly not able to recognise myself. The other thing you said made me appreciate someone from here kindly alerting me to a filmed interview Ian did in a place I used to stay 'Burley Road' Kentish Town (think I spelt Burley wrong) You said If you look at interviews he did when he was young he's almost the opposite. At one time I was very keen to give back all the letters Ian wrote to me. I think firstly because I wanted to remind him of who he used to be (as you observed from those early interviews) and secondly because the letters contain early autobiographical information which no one else had accessed at that point and which I thought might be useful to him one day. Thirdly I did not want o keep the letters, yet understandably found difficulty in throwing them away. Can't think why he asked me to continue holding on to them but he did. The fame thing is a big subject for me. Later perhaps if you can stand my partly negative view on it. Thank you so much for this very revealing post. I think it's interesting on two levels. One is that it shows the limits of autobiography. We all forget key elements or revisit them on the basis of what we now know. It's why I think that biographies based on multiple sources are so much more reliable. I think that's especially true for somebody like IA who it seems to me has always sought to put a shield between himself and his stage persona in order to preserve his privacy (rightly, I think). This extends, though, to his musical output. As he says in Back-Door Angels 'Think I'll sit down and invent some fool/ some Grand Court Jester.' That persona enables him to say things in song and then deny that they have anything to do with him. I'm reminded of the numerous times that TAAB is written off, by him, as a spoof concept album and that the lyrics are not to be taken seriously. On the contrary, I think they are an interesting reflection on education and intelligence which I suspect draws on his days as a grammar school boy. Indeed, in another interview he says "the theme of Thick as a Brick came out of my adolescent feelings about society and how it tries to bend you away from your will and towards its will, as if you're not bright enough to make your own choices. I wasn't a precocious child, but I knew how it felt to be one of the more academically gifted people; I knew what it felt like to be orstracized, despised and feared by the rank and file, who weren't terribly bright. No one likes the clever kids. So the album came to represent the gulf between growing up clever and the social discrepancy that results from that; the fact that you were really disliked by some of the kids." So I think that's why an autobiography might not be as revealing as interviews where he lets his guard down. The second point follows on from that and from your comment that Ian is to a degree reconstructing his former persona from soft and feminine boy to something a little 'naughtier'. I've always been struck (and favourably) about how he rejected the rock n' roll male clichés in his youth - it would be intriguing to trace how we got from there to 'Kissing Willie'! Something happened along the way that I find just a little disturbing when I listen, for example, to Baker Street Muse. Again, back to point one, the grand court jester would say this is all observation, but the observations in gender terms do seem to shift over the years.
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Post by conchis on Apr 11, 2018 16:11:55 GMT
I feel that IA's songs draw strongly on personal experience, though he makes claims to the contrary. For all his public life, he has been a very guarded person and I don't think you'll ever get him to 'open up' completely.
The most personal/vulnerable stuff he has written - when at low points in his life, as (partly) on Benefit and (mostly) on Minstrel - he tends to downplay but I don't think you have to use too much imagination to understand what he must have been going through at those points.
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Post by steelmonkey on Apr 13, 2018 23:19:30 GMT
None of us, I expect, would be free of some contradictions and embarrassing evolution if our lives were examined via public appearances, interviews and sound bites. How could Ian really keep it all straight and consistent and tied up tight over 50 years of constant interviews, some very in depth, with time to reflect, but most experienced as uninformed bombardment. All growth, all our lives, comes with some self-denunciation of past selves and a large dose of 'I wish I knew then, what I know now". I think Ian is an extraordinary person in so many ways: talent, intellect, taking responsibility, family, charity, integrity...I could go on and on. Some social clumsiness as a younger man or some not quite smoothed edges over a long public life are quite small in comparision to the big picture we can all see. Of course, I am not objective, I am grateful for the music and lyrics that have meant so much for so long. I always tell my kid that I am a deep hippie pacifist...what I don't tell her, is when the chaos starts, there I'll be defending the periphery of the Anderson estate. See you there ?
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Post by steelmonkey on Apr 13, 2018 23:19:58 GMT
Sure I'm crazy, but if I can't fess up here....where ?
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