aqualung (1971) - jethro tull: rerpise records, MS-2035

Back when I was a musical neophyte in the 9th grade, there were three albums you had to have in order to be taken seriously:
   1. Dark Side of the Moon
   2. Led Zeppelin IV (aka "zoso")
   3. Aqualung

That was the holy trinity.  Of course, you would be judged by the other albums in your stack, but without those three you'd be immediately dismissed as a cretin - even if you also had some Velvet Underground, Bowie, Ramones, and Sex Pistols.

Of those three, my favorite always was, and remains, Aqualung.  Both for it's musical style and for the sheer audacity behind the presumption Ian Anderson & co had in order to make it.

Despite the denial by Tull frontman, Ian Anderson, most people consider Aqualung to be a "concept" album.  The two sides tell related stories of depravity and perversion, side one (sub-titled "Aqualung") is about the corporeal while side two (sub-titled "My God") deals with the ethereal. Together the two sides paint a rather cynical picture of the nature of morality, compassion, and what it means to be a good christian (spoiler alert: christianity and religion don't come off looking too good).

Side 1 (Aqualung): Aqualung Cross-Eyed Mary Cheap Day Return Mother Goose Wond'ring Aloud Up To Me
Side 2 (My God): My God Hymn 43 Slipstream Locomotive Breath Wind-Up

The cover and gatefold tells the sordid nature of both the character and message of the album before the record is removed from the sleeve.  The front features an icky, decrepit man (the character Aqualung) sneering menacingly while hiding something in his grubby coat. His face bears an unpleasant expression, and his posture hints at bad news.  Opening the gatefold reveals a debauched, drunken scene in which other seedy men join our hero to revel in drink, song, and their own (probably aromatic) company.

Yeah, these boys are definitely having quite a time indulging themselves in the age-old comfort of booze. This is clearly not the weekly meeting of the Christian Temperance League, though it likely is a meeting of christians.

The back closes the story by showing Aqualung sitting in a gutter, still wearing the artificial cheer of alcohol, while a dog appears to be lapping up his vomit.

Good times ...  Good times ...

No question, this is one of the all-time great album covers, and interestingly enough, the story is that it was inspired (as were many of the songs) by some photos of homeless people taken by Ian Anderson's wife.

As powerful and impressive as the cover is, the songs are even more so.  Consider that side one of the album opens with these lines:

Sitting on a park bench / eying little girls with bad intent
snot is running down his nose / greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun / watching while the frilly panties run

Yeah, this is one icky guy.  But he's not without some sympathy, as he's later described in the song:

Sun streaking cold / an old man wandering lonely 
Taking time / the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad / as he bends to pick a dog-end 
he goes down to the bog / and warms his feet.

As indicated by a delightful summary of the idea of religion on the back cover, side two is an indictment of the hypocrisy, mendacity, and exploitive nature of religious construct and practice, with such delicious and unequivocal lyrics as: "People, what have you done / locked Him in His golden cage / Made Him bend to your religion / Him resurrected from the grave" (My God) and "If Jesus saves, well, He'd better save Himself / from the gory glory seekers who use His name in death" (Hymn 43).

Eventually the hollow nature and false hope of religion are exposed in Locomotive Breath, wherein some poor slob whose life has collapsed finds himself hurtling uncontrollably toward inevitable suicide ("the train it won't stop going / no way to slow down") tries a last-ditch effort to save himself, only to discover that the idea of salvation through the bible is a mugs' game:

He picks up Gideon's Bible / open at page one 
God stole the handle / and the train won't stop going / no way to slow down

Finally, the last song, Wind Up, is a scathing summation of a young lad's dawning awareness of just how fake it all is.

In essence, Aqualung - that soiled pederast - is at once both a victim and manifestation of organized religion (or, organized religion is Aqualung made liturgical, take your pick). The predatory, abusive, and destructive things Aqualung would do to a young girl is the same as what religion does to people.  And it isn't pretty.

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