A Walk with Aqualung – Aqualung Proper

Greetings Dear Reader,

First we are introduced to the main character.  He is not a pleasant man.  We do not know his history nor do we know how he came to be where he is.  What we do know is that he is both in need and in pain.

I immediately felt for him.  His pain and poverty touched my soul.  This was unique as I was already a very angry and quietly disturbed young man.  That I felt compassion for this fictional soul was something that has not stirred in me for a couple of years. 

We first see Aqualung as the disheveled man he is.  The hard electric guitar and heavy drums create a harshness that belies the compassion about to come.  The song shifts to a soft acoustic mode and gently demands that we see Aqualung’s pain and circumstance.  There is also the first hint of a theme that will carry throughout the album.  That theme being the place of the church in Aqualung’s plight. 

We are then treated to a harder view of his situation.  He is dying.  He smokes dog ends he picks up off the ground.  He freezes in winter and has no shelter.  More important the singer knows him.  He is trying reach out to him.

This touched a place in me that I was trying with all my being to wall up.  I have mentioned this once or twice before but I am sure at this age I was headed toward becoming a cruel and malevolent being.  I was brick by brick walling off all kindness and compassion within me.  This song in its beauty and harshness weakened the mortification of my spirit.  It kept the soil of my soul soft for the seeds that were to come.

Whether he intended to or not, Ian Anderson had begun to spin a thread in my destiny.  He does not realize that this single thread became the life line that would save me from eventual suicide.  I do know it and have always been very grateful.

The link with the lyrics is Jethro Tull comprised of Ian Anderson (guitar, voice), Martin Barre (Electric Guitar), John Evan (Piano), Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (bass Guitar) and Barriemore Barlow (Drums) performing Aqualung during their Aqualung tour show in Berkeley, California, June 1971.   It is not the best performance of this song but the video does capture some excellent pictures of the band in the moment. This link will take you to a better recording of the song if you wish it.

Enjoy and please share your thoughts with me.

Aqualung – Ian and Jennie Anderson

Sitting on a park bench, 

Eying little girls

With bad intent.

Snot running down his nose

Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.

Drying in the cold sun

Watching as the frilly panties run.

Feeling like a dead duck

Spitting out pieces of his broken luck.

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

Goes down to the bog to

Warm his feet.

Feeling alone

The army's up the rode

Salvation a la mode and

A cup of tea.

Aqualung my friend

Don't start away uneasy

You poor old sod

You see it's only me.

Do you still remember

December's foggy freeze

When the ice that

Clings on to your beard is

Screaming agony.

And you snatch your rattling last breaths

With deep-sea diver sounds,

And the flowers bloom like

Madness in the spring.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."