fartzarellah's Full Review: A Passion Play [Remaster] by Jethro Tull
Axe-wielding, bearded lunatics must have been much more common in 1973, when A Passion Play, like its predecessor Thick As A Brick, shot to number one on the billboard charts. Both albums featured one long track per side and both were stuffed with odd meters that caused potential dancers to stumble over one another and curse their grandmothers. What the hell was wrong with people back then?
Since I can not really answer that question, I would like to pose another: What the hell was right about those albums (this one in particular)? None of the lyrics are about romance or anything that anyone can really relate to. They are not about emotions like "it feels so good" or "I feel so much pain" or "I'm falling into blackness" or "I'm walking into light." In fact, it is nearly impossible to tell what the flock these lyrics are about at all. But since the album went to number one, there must be something accessible about it, right?
A Passion Play may have become a hit by riding on the coat tails of Tull's previous album, but as I mentioned, Thick as a Brick is a very similar recording: one long track, strange lyrics, strange music. That answer does not get us anywhere. It may also have been a success because of the frightening yet somehow erotic cover and the entertaining gatefold, which included a little booklet. Yep, that probably did have something to do with it, but friends would most likely tell friends not to buy the album if they had been sucked in by the cover art only to find that the music sucked.
Ok, enough of this game. I will skin the cat and let it out of its bag: Ian Anderson was an excellent melodist and a skilled arranger. Sure, A Passion Play is tortuously complex when viewed as a whole, but there is nothing complicated about how his beautiful, enticing melodies call to you like a siren from the isle of Lesbos, imploring you to cast yourself into the sea (or to spend four dollars on this album.) And sure, there is little continuity between the tunes, no "organic development" to speak of (like DNA expressing itself differently in your toes and fingers but both being made of the same DNA after all. Music theorists get all hot over that type of thing), but it is only critics, not real people, who care about organicism. Music lovers will continue to love Tchaikovsky no matter how much music theorists tell them they shouldn't. Likewise, I will continue to be entranced by the seductive melodies on this album no matter how much the axe wielding, bearded professor in my head says "It's poorly crafted! Schoenberg would not approve! I'll tell on you if you keep listening to this monstrosity!" or how much the pierced snotty punk who lives in my groin says "f@ck this pompous bullsh!t, mate. I wanna rock!" It's all about the melodies that you can't get out of your head and don't even want to, dude! Heck, I went through this album three or four times in my head as I was driving to Massachusetts last weekend!
Well, not ALL about the melodies...We also get excellent acoustic, finger pickin', folksy guitaritry, squawking saxophone solos (not much flute on here, believe it or not!), luscious, srumdidle-dee-umptious piano work, excellent woodsy singing from Ian Anderson (which fits nicely into my vocal range) and quirky, fun musical arrangements. AND the whole esoteric, hermetically sealed "concept" is fun to try and figure out. For an excellent interpretation that I would love to claim as my own, check out:
To summarize that discussion, A Passion Play is split into two "acts", four "scenes". In the first, our protagonist, one Ronnie Pilgrim, is dead and hovering above his body at his own funeral while grandiose piano accompaniment backs his obscure, melodious recitative. In act two, he is in Purgatory, wherein narsty critics from the music press show him his life on film and say mean things like:
Actor of the low IQ / let's hear your view
peek at the lines upon your sleeves because your memory won't do
and
Are we here...for the gory satisfaction of telling you how absolutely awful you really are?
Well, after a happy forest dance and a brief intermission which has nothing to do with anything else (The Story of the Hare who lost his Spectacles), we come to act two, during which Ronnie goes first to heaven and then to hell (scene one), deciding he really likes neither, so he chooses to be reborn (scene two). The moral of the whole story seems to be:
Here's the ever-lasting rub
Neither am I good nor bad
I'd give up my halo for a horn
and the horn for the hat I once had
In other words, let us revel in the here and now, let us enjoy our life as it is, let us not bother with trying to be "cool" (either by being holier than thou or a rebel without a cause). I believe the whole affair may have had something to do with Ian Anderson coping with negative criticism by putting forth a personal statement that goes something like: I will not take your advice to heart, either by following it (being "holy") or railing against it (being "evil"). I will be the man that I am. Just a thought there, do with it as you wish.
More on the music then
Although the CD is one long track, it is easily divided into eight separate songs of average length all linked together by intricate instrumental passages. Taking some of the song names from a "track listing" that I found somewhere, I separate the "songs" as follows:
The Silver Cord 3:26 - 7:53
The Icy Wastes 9:04 - 15:21
The Babies Get Made 15:22 - 20:00
The Story of the Hare who Lost his Spectacles 21:34 - 24:39
G. Oddie's Office 27:02 - 31:51
In Hell 31:55 - 35:05
Fleeing Icy Lucifer 35:51 - 39:18
Into Ever Day 40:21 - 44:16
Only the second song is very hard to defend as being one (it has too many disparate parts). It would be better described as three songs pasted together. Nonetheless, I am happy that the songs are all very different from one another. Who cares that they don't share common melodies? The distinctions between "tracks" help them to stand out from one another and keeps our little journey through the afterlife from becoming too dull. On the other hand, there are enough similarities here and there to justify the construction of the album as one long track instead of separate ones. Sometimes this seems overly obvious and forced (as in the recaps of "Silver Cord" at the end of each "side") but I can deal with that. The songs run the gamut from folk to hard rock to fairyish operatic recitative, and Ian Anderson's great sense of humor saves the whole affair from becoming pretentious.
My favorite part is the Winnie the Pooh meets Peter and The Wolf orchestral intermission entitled The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles. The music and arrangement is charming and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond's purposefully pompous narration is delivered without a hitch. In the story, a bee, a kangaroo, a newt, and an owl all worry themselves over poor hare, who seems to have lost his spectacles. What will the poor fellow do? He seems "completely helpless"! But, aha! Hare just smiles to himself and pays no attention, as he has, after all, a sparrrrrrrrre, a-pairrrrrrrrrr!
There are a few cons to the album. The music does get a bit tricky for its own good at points and Ian Anderson's singing seems unduly affected from time to time, but, for the most part, I see A Passion Play as the crowning achievement of concept albums from the early 70s. It is more colorful than Thick as A Brick and far more interesting than Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans. If you are a prog head, no reason not to own this one and, if you are not, this CD may be the perfect place to try and figure out just what the hell was right about this stuff.
Below is a breakdown of the entire album, which will not interest most people, but I included it because there may be freaks out there like myself who would like to play along with this album on their guitar or ocarina. Please, do not read through it if you do not want to be bored!
Lifebeats 0:00 - 1:13
weird, scary sounds and a dying heartbeat.
Prelude 1:13 - 3:26
carnivalesque introduction which introduces none of the main themes from the album.
Bb lydian - Ab - G - (Ab - A - Bb -) 1:13
C (transition)1:34
Gm (9/8 section) 1:44
Middle: 2:05 G- C - A - B - C - Bb - C - G - F - G - D
Reprise: 2:45
F Lydian ( or C melodic minor with F center) with whistle 3:04 (F-Eb-Bb)
(return of lifebeats 3:15)
Silver Cord 3:26 - 7:53
The nicest melody on the album, perhaps the shapeliest melody to come out of progressive rock, period
C aeloian with pickardy third most times (heavily toward subdominant)
1, 2, 3rd verses have nice acoustic guitar at beginning (ends echoing out of passion play)
4th has melodies decay (ends into ever passion)
Middle section 5:49 - 6:47
Begins with F lydian of prelude, then C 11/8 hall of mountain grill (6:11)
Goes Cm - Dm - C major pickardy (sax solo)
5th and 6th verse 6:52 (the sweetly scented angel, and gentlemen)
Interlude 7:53 - 9:04
Begins with Cm acoustic guitar of verse three ending with nice C major acoustic, ends on V chord (G major)
Let's go to the icy wastes! 9:04 - 15:21
The weirdest music of the album.
F Lydian acoustic
[Dm-C-Bb-C-Dm-C-Bb-D (run starting on E-A tetrachord, ending Dm) "all along"
Cm - A (run ending on E) "roll up roll down"
C - F/G - Bb - G "the cameras were all around"] Whole thing *2
Instrumental 10:28 - 12:58
G (uses the running tetrachord idea)
Gm (tetrachords backward) 10:48 11/8 (transposes up to Am)
Return of the mountain grill in Dm with flute solos 11:37
Variation on grill with starts and stops all around Dm 12:34
Take the prize! Dmajor 12:58
All of your best friends telephones 13:32 (C-Eb)
Climb in your umbrella 14:10 (C-Eb(F-G))
Back to stops and starts on Dm (14:51 or so) but ends on G chord (15:21)
The babies get made 15:22 - 21:34
Real danger boy music here! Be careful!
Gm
17:44 the running E-A tetra comes back.
Wait! We're back in the icy wastes 17:56 (but run starts on F#-B and ends on E!)
All the rest transposed up a whole step
Wait! The babies are getting made again! (how does it feel to play?) Gm 18:31
The man of passion rises 18:49
There was a rush 20:00
Happy Forest Dance 20:20
(C mixolydian, ambient. life-beats return, ends on a G chord (?!))
Intermission: The Hare Loses His Testicles 21:34 - 25:49
Main theme F-D, but tonal center is C, ends on G chord to lead to
Happy Forest Dance Part II still C 25:50 - 27:01 (ends on an F chord)
G. Oddies office or weh-hell I'll go to the foot of our sta-hair 27:02 - 31:54
Acoustic, folksy, brooding, a bit repetitive, but ah well.
Gminor (Gm-F-Eb-Db) many verses (1,2,3 (expanded))
Jack Rabbit moves to D minor 28:32
Instrumental 28:52 now D minor (more cool sax, keys and guitar solos)
Return of E-A tetrachord 30:47
Church organ (F-Eb-Bb) 30:50
Return of Jack Rabbit 30:58
God speaks in the manner of Lucifer 31:20 Gm moves to F
In Hell (life beat returns) 31:55 - 35:50
More danger! A sympathetic portrait of Lucifer, the poor dude.
Two verses then bridge then verse then instrumental section (33:49)
Then verse at 34:27, then sax solo over verse, ends same as HFDII ended (on F)
Then weird instrumental interlude with baseball organ on Eb minor 35:22
Fleeing Icy Lucifer 35:51 - 39:18
One of those bits that gets a little too complicated, but is still entertaining and whatnot.
Gm -F again
[verse, verse - chorus]*2
Irish music instrumental in Gm, then Dm 37:32 - 38:23
verse, verse - chorus
Happy acoustic guitar dance 39:18 - 40:21
A major, 10/8 (9/8 + 1)
Steve Howe Riff, being reborn and stuff 40:21 - 44:16
We have been transformed! Renewed! Kick-azz guitar riff! Woo-hoo!
E tonal center
intro 40:21
Verses (*2) 40:59
moves E to D
Bridge 42:03
Em, then Bm, then Em
Irish music dance returns in D, now in 7/8 42:35
Steve Howe tries to "break through" 42:59
Return of this section's intro 43:06
Verse 43:22
little interlude leads us to a G chord to bring us to
A rush comes back (C again) 44:16
weird dissonant ending 44:40 - 44:57
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