Post by Mark Lavallee on Sept 1, 2012 22:20:34 GMT -5
And now onto the crowning achievement of progressive rock. 1973's A Passion Play.
Released on July 6th in the UK where it peaked at #13 and on July 23rd here in the US where, like it's predecessor it shot up to #1.
Also like Thick As A Brick this is an album long song suite, only this time with a much more complex story/musical structure. A Passion Play is a spiritual journey through the afterlife in four acts. Tull were nothing if not ambitious. Lyrically, this album is extremely complicated - intentionally unclear and left up to the listener's interpretation. None of the characters, not even the main character, are ever referred to by name except for Lucifer. The album came with a mock theatre programme, like Brick's newspaper, which was very satirical yet essential in finding clues to deciphering the story.
Here's a brief synopsis:
A Passion Play begins with the young, everyman protagonist Ronnie Pilgrim’s recognition of his own death and his unnoticed, ghost-like presence at his own funeral. Pilgrim takes a moment to reflect rather proudly on his life achievements, only to realise that the gathered funeral-goers may have a differing perspective on his life. Pilgrim then finds himself traversing a land of purgatorial, "Icy wastes," where he is visited by a guiding angel who smiles sympathetically (Act 1).
Pilgrim is soon admitted into a video viewing room by a Peter Dejour. Here, events of Pilgrim's life are replayed before him by a projectionist and he is questioned before an anonymous, demanding jury. Although Pilgrim has evidently committed some ethical errors in his past, the jury concludes with a strangely sharp hint of irony, after a bizarre and long-winded evaluation process, that Pilgrim has led a mostly decent life. The implication, ultimately, is that he will be admitted into Heaven - a notion reinforced by the sudden start of the cheerful, instrumental tune of a "Forest Dance" (Act 2).
The main plot is interrupted at this point by an unrelated, spoken-word comedic interlude with a musical background. Presented as an absurd fable, the interlude details (with much wordplay) the failure of a group of anthropomorphic animals to help a hare find his missing eyeglasses. The development of the fable into a full-fledged story, or of any possible moral lesson to the story, is prevented because the hare actually has a spare pair of glasses, a revelation that abruptly ends the fable ("The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles"), returning the play to its main plot.
The "Forest Dance" melody resumes and Ronnie Pilgrim now appears, two days after his judgment at the viewing room, in Heaven. Here, Pilgrim's unexpected alarm and discontent are communicated by two figures of speech: "I'll go to the foot of our stairs" (an expression of surprise) and, "Pie in the sky," (an expression of skepticism about the fulfillment of a reward). Pilgrim's suffering in Heaven is an apparent result of its mundane atmosphere in which most of his neighbors endlessly reminisce, chronically obsessing over the living. Therefore, unable to adapt, Pilgrim goes to G. Oddie & Son to frankly request a relocation to Hell, which is granted to Pilgrim with G. Oddie briefly, passively responding merely that Pilgrim is a, "Well-meaning fool." Pilgrim instantly descending into Hell is confronted by Lucifer (named "Lucy" in the album's fictitious Linwell Theatre playbill but "Lucifer" in the lyrics).
Lucifer asserts his utterly cold control over his subjects and his own submission to no authority (Act 3). Having left Heaven to seek excitement, Pilgrim immediately finds Hell even worse with his loss of autonomy. Fleeing from Lucifer's clutches, Pilgrim now understands himself as suitable for neither domain, because is neither completely good nor completely evil. He talks to Magus Perdé (a character whose role is never quite made clear—his name is an apparent Latinism that could be translated as, "Lost magician") about his desire to go back to where he came from.
Having sampled and rejected both extremes of his afterlife options, Pilgrim invents a third option: he now stands on a Stygian shore, apparently prepared to return to the realm of the living, as a, "Voyager into life". On this beach other people and animals who, "Breathe the ever-burning fire," also wait to, "Renew the pledge of life's long song," and the play ends thus, with a heavy suggestion of eternal rebirth (Act 4).
Phew. With that being said let's delve into the history of the album a little bit. Originally the band relocated to France to escape Britain's notoriously extortionate tax rates of the 70s and began recording at the famed Chateau d'Herouville where Elton John found great success (Rocket Man, Honkey Cat, etc). Tull found the studio to be outdated and obsolete. After recording three sides of a double album. This was later released as the Chateau d'Isaster Sessions. The band missed home and relocated back to England. Rather than rerecording what they'd been working on in France Anderson reworked sections of the previous piece and wrote an entirely new album. A few pieces from the France sessions will be familiar to Tull fans, Bungle In The Jungle, Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day and Only Solitaire ended up on 1974's War Child album. I'll get to the Chateau album in time.
Back to A Passion Play. For me this is the ultimate progressive rock album. I can't think of any album ever recorded that is as demanding to listen to as this one. You can't just throw it on in the background. It's also not the kind of album you hear once and think much about. It took me multiple listens to really, "Get it." What sounds like a disjointed tuneless mess ultimately reveals it's complexity and beauty through multiple listens. It's a demanding album but also incredibly rewarding. Even in the prog rock era there were few bands who would have been able to perform a piece of this complexity. To single out any one musician would be a crime, everyone is at the top of their game here. The addition of Ian Anderson playing Soprano and Sopranino Saxes is quite welcome and really gives the album a different flavor.
The album simply doesn't flow like Thick As A Brick. It's one continuous piece, but the different sections are often completely different types of music that link together. When you analyze it the album is really stunning in it's complexity and ingenuity. More late 19th century impressionistic than concerto. A ballet set to words almost.
There was even a 45 single released (A Passion Play Edit 8, what were 1-7? LOL) that somehow made it to #80 in the US!
The album was mercilessly savaged by critics, and some of those reviews can be pretty entertaining, such as...
MELODY MAKER
21 July 1973
Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
TULL: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
It gives me no pleasure to report upon this recording. In fact I cannot recall an album by a British rock band that has given me more pain to endure...
I repeat, it gives me no pleasure to fulfil the role of the 'panel of judges' that Ian finds so distasteful. But all I can say is that music is a sacred trust, and for good or ill, that trust rests in the hands of musicians who today have greater technical and financial resources than ever before in the history of composing and performing. That musicians should want to utilise those resources is commendable and understandable. But please don't get lost in delusion and drama. Music must touch the soul. A Passion Play rattles with emptiness.
Unlike the reviewer above (and others like him), I have a different view of A Passion Play. To me this really is the ultimate achievment of what progressive rock aimed to be. On A Passon Play Jethro Tull hit that mark dead center.
Final rating - 5 out of 5 stars.
Released on July 6th in the UK where it peaked at #13 and on July 23rd here in the US where, like it's predecessor it shot up to #1.
Also like Thick As A Brick this is an album long song suite, only this time with a much more complex story/musical structure. A Passion Play is a spiritual journey through the afterlife in four acts. Tull were nothing if not ambitious. Lyrically, this album is extremely complicated - intentionally unclear and left up to the listener's interpretation. None of the characters, not even the main character, are ever referred to by name except for Lucifer. The album came with a mock theatre programme, like Brick's newspaper, which was very satirical yet essential in finding clues to deciphering the story.
Here's a brief synopsis:
A Passion Play begins with the young, everyman protagonist Ronnie Pilgrim’s recognition of his own death and his unnoticed, ghost-like presence at his own funeral. Pilgrim takes a moment to reflect rather proudly on his life achievements, only to realise that the gathered funeral-goers may have a differing perspective on his life. Pilgrim then finds himself traversing a land of purgatorial, "Icy wastes," where he is visited by a guiding angel who smiles sympathetically (Act 1).
Pilgrim is soon admitted into a video viewing room by a Peter Dejour. Here, events of Pilgrim's life are replayed before him by a projectionist and he is questioned before an anonymous, demanding jury. Although Pilgrim has evidently committed some ethical errors in his past, the jury concludes with a strangely sharp hint of irony, after a bizarre and long-winded evaluation process, that Pilgrim has led a mostly decent life. The implication, ultimately, is that he will be admitted into Heaven - a notion reinforced by the sudden start of the cheerful, instrumental tune of a "Forest Dance" (Act 2).
The main plot is interrupted at this point by an unrelated, spoken-word comedic interlude with a musical background. Presented as an absurd fable, the interlude details (with much wordplay) the failure of a group of anthropomorphic animals to help a hare find his missing eyeglasses. The development of the fable into a full-fledged story, or of any possible moral lesson to the story, is prevented because the hare actually has a spare pair of glasses, a revelation that abruptly ends the fable ("The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles"), returning the play to its main plot.
The "Forest Dance" melody resumes and Ronnie Pilgrim now appears, two days after his judgment at the viewing room, in Heaven. Here, Pilgrim's unexpected alarm and discontent are communicated by two figures of speech: "I'll go to the foot of our stairs" (an expression of surprise) and, "Pie in the sky," (an expression of skepticism about the fulfillment of a reward). Pilgrim's suffering in Heaven is an apparent result of its mundane atmosphere in which most of his neighbors endlessly reminisce, chronically obsessing over the living. Therefore, unable to adapt, Pilgrim goes to G. Oddie & Son to frankly request a relocation to Hell, which is granted to Pilgrim with G. Oddie briefly, passively responding merely that Pilgrim is a, "Well-meaning fool." Pilgrim instantly descending into Hell is confronted by Lucifer (named "Lucy" in the album's fictitious Linwell Theatre playbill but "Lucifer" in the lyrics).
Lucifer asserts his utterly cold control over his subjects and his own submission to no authority (Act 3). Having left Heaven to seek excitement, Pilgrim immediately finds Hell even worse with his loss of autonomy. Fleeing from Lucifer's clutches, Pilgrim now understands himself as suitable for neither domain, because is neither completely good nor completely evil. He talks to Magus Perdé (a character whose role is never quite made clear—his name is an apparent Latinism that could be translated as, "Lost magician") about his desire to go back to where he came from.
Having sampled and rejected both extremes of his afterlife options, Pilgrim invents a third option: he now stands on a Stygian shore, apparently prepared to return to the realm of the living, as a, "Voyager into life". On this beach other people and animals who, "Breathe the ever-burning fire," also wait to, "Renew the pledge of life's long song," and the play ends thus, with a heavy suggestion of eternal rebirth (Act 4).
Phew. With that being said let's delve into the history of the album a little bit. Originally the band relocated to France to escape Britain's notoriously extortionate tax rates of the 70s and began recording at the famed Chateau d'Herouville where Elton John found great success (Rocket Man, Honkey Cat, etc). Tull found the studio to be outdated and obsolete. After recording three sides of a double album. This was later released as the Chateau d'Isaster Sessions. The band missed home and relocated back to England. Rather than rerecording what they'd been working on in France Anderson reworked sections of the previous piece and wrote an entirely new album. A few pieces from the France sessions will be familiar to Tull fans, Bungle In The Jungle, Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day and Only Solitaire ended up on 1974's War Child album. I'll get to the Chateau album in time.
Back to A Passion Play. For me this is the ultimate progressive rock album. I can't think of any album ever recorded that is as demanding to listen to as this one. You can't just throw it on in the background. It's also not the kind of album you hear once and think much about. It took me multiple listens to really, "Get it." What sounds like a disjointed tuneless mess ultimately reveals it's complexity and beauty through multiple listens. It's a demanding album but also incredibly rewarding. Even in the prog rock era there were few bands who would have been able to perform a piece of this complexity. To single out any one musician would be a crime, everyone is at the top of their game here. The addition of Ian Anderson playing Soprano and Sopranino Saxes is quite welcome and really gives the album a different flavor.
The album simply doesn't flow like Thick As A Brick. It's one continuous piece, but the different sections are often completely different types of music that link together. When you analyze it the album is really stunning in it's complexity and ingenuity. More late 19th century impressionistic than concerto. A ballet set to words almost.
There was even a 45 single released (A Passion Play Edit 8, what were 1-7? LOL) that somehow made it to #80 in the US!
The album was mercilessly savaged by critics, and some of those reviews can be pretty entertaining, such as...
MELODY MAKER
21 July 1973
Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
TULL: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
It gives me no pleasure to report upon this recording. In fact I cannot recall an album by a British rock band that has given me more pain to endure...
I repeat, it gives me no pleasure to fulfil the role of the 'panel of judges' that Ian finds so distasteful. But all I can say is that music is a sacred trust, and for good or ill, that trust rests in the hands of musicians who today have greater technical and financial resources than ever before in the history of composing and performing. That musicians should want to utilise those resources is commendable and understandable. But please don't get lost in delusion and drama. Music must touch the soul. A Passion Play rattles with emptiness.
Unlike the reviewer above (and others like him), I have a different view of A Passion Play. To me this really is the ultimate achievment of what progressive rock aimed to be. On A Passon Play Jethro Tull hit that mark dead center.
Final rating - 5 out of 5 stars.