Green Man from the wood (28th of June 2013)

I am going through the list of favorites on my YouTube account trying to comprehend why YouTube's engine recommended me the album "Songs From The Wood" by Jethro Tull. Here, it could be a combination of "Mná na hÉireann" by several performers (among others by Kate Bush and Donal Lunny) and "Run To The Hills" by Iron Maiden? Or it could be because of "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues combined with "It's a Long Way To The Top" by AC/DC while Bon Scott was still alive? I don't even know why I followed the recommendation because I usually completely ignore them, but I am not sorry for that.

I somewhat, of course, know Jethro Tull, but I missed the album "Songs From The Wood". This is not surprising, because the album is apparently not appreciated a lot by their fans. Which is an injustice because "Songs From The Wood" is the best album of Jethro Tull.

This is the album which successfully left its time, and with that most of what the Jethro Tull is recognizable for. "Songs From The Wood" are, as the name says, songs from the wood:

These are, among other this, songs about passion: the village lovers wallow on a velvet-green carpet, under the moonlight, and servant secretly obeys his mistress on a field far away from the road. Such is the wood, it cannot live without the passion and stirred blood of the >> Green Man, and he does not yield to the concrete, even in these times of motorways and powerlines:

Not everything is passion in songs from the wood; there is also ripe love in the wood which warms up after another tiring working day:

"Songs From The Wood" are a bit pagan, "druid" album, not only for its lyrics, but also for its music which is manically, but also consistently varied. It is a well-tempered mixture of hard rock guitar passages, Celtic virtuosities on flute, renaissance and medieval themes, nursery rhymes which make you jump on one foot, but also harmoniously fitted melodic concepts with "classical" pretensions. These apparently discontinuous musical territories are separated by sudden, but in fact precisely planned changes in tempo and rhythm, which give additional unrestrainedness to the album. On the waves of these rhythmical and musical layers swims a very solid vocal performance of >>Ian Anderson which gives the album required consistency.

In contrast to some other albums of Tull which I know, this one is not the least boring or predictable. It is, in my opinion, their (Anderson's) master piece.

While I listen to "Songs From The Wood" I constantly see images. I see strong vertical forest contrasts of light and darkness, cleared fields taken by deep grass, sweaty horses which scream while they struggle to move a heavily burdened wagon, village fair where shabby actors and players dance, wind which throws first large drops of rain in my face while I run away from the rain shower.

And, in the end, why I write about such old music?

Well, we already have far too much people who write about "what is going on at the moment", and relatively little is in fact going on. The idea of progress, at least in music, is delusion. There are works in a "timeline" of music which successfully separate from the timeline and become places of musical pilgrimage which should definitely be visited. There is nothing "modern" about it.

Besides, the ancient Green Man would most certainly like the songs from the wood.

This is probably the last post before the autumn. Until then ...

Last updated on 28th of June, 2013.