Jethro Tull – Aqualung

Although I have heard this one a lot…I still listen when I hear it on radio. So many changes in this song that even after repeats…it’s interesting. Probably the number 1 known song by Jethro Tull. According to Songfacts Ian Anderson wrote the song and called it “a guilt-ridden song of confusion about how you deal with beggars, the homeless.”

Ian’s wife at the time, Jennie took photos of the homeless and showed them to Ian.  Many of the lyrics describe actual homeless men. Jennie also wrote some lyrics from the photos, giving her songwriting credit and half the royalties from the song…they divorced in 1974.

Jethro Tull Aqualung Cover

Jethro Tull’s manager Burton Silverman commissioned an artist named Burton Silverman to do the watercolor cover of the album. He had seen Silverman’s work in Time Magazine earlier. Silverman took some pictures of Ian Anderson in his overcoat and ended up painting a very haggard-looking Anderson. Anderson was not happy with it at the time. Burton sued the band afterward because he didn’t think they had the right to use it for promotional items like T-Shirts.

An “Aqualung” is a portable breathing apparatus for divers. Anderson envisioned the homeless man getting that nickname because of breathing problems. Ian watched Sea Hunt and got ideas from that.

Aqualung the album peaked at #7 on the Billboard Album Charts, #5 in Canada, and #4 in the UK. Aqualung the song never charted but has constantly been played on Classic Rock radio without stopping.

Ian Anderson: “A guilt-ridden song of confusion about how you deal with beggars, the homeless… It’s about our reaction, of guilt, distaste, awkwardness, and confusion, all these things that we feel when we’re confronted with the reality of the homeless. You see someone who’s clearly in desperate need of some help, whether it’s a few coins or the contents of your wallet, and you blank them out. The more you live in that business-driven, commercially-driven lifestyle, you can just cease to see them.”

Ian Anderson on why it wasn’t a single:  “Because it was too long, it was too episodic, it starts off with a loud guitar riff and then goes into rather more laid back acoustic stuff. Led Zeppelin at the time, you know, they didn’t release any singles. It was album tracks. And radio sharply divided between AM radio, which played the 3-minute pop hits, and FM radio where they played what they called deep cuts. You would go into a album and play the obscure, the longer, the more convoluted songs in that period of more developmental rock music. But that day is not really with us anymore, whether it be classic rock stations that do play some of that music, but they are thin on the ground, and they too know that they’ve got to keep it short and sharp and cheerful, and provide the blue blanket of familiar sounding music and get onto the next set of commercial breaks, because that’s what pays the radio station costs of being on the air. So pragmatic rules apply.”

Aqualung

Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey, Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, oh, Aqualung

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 a bog and warms his feet

Feeling alone, the army’s up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don’t you 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
It was screaming agony

Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring

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 a bog and warms his feet

Feeling alone, the army’s up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend don’t you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it’s only me

Aqualung my friend don’t you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it’s only me

Sitting on a park bench
Eying up little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, hey Aqualung

Oh Aqualung

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

53 thoughts on “Jethro Tull – Aqualung”

    2. One band I would have loved to see live. Max and I kid about going back to see some of these live concerts once Time Travel is possible. Of course, first we’ll go back to The Cavern Club to see The Beatles 🙂

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  4. My lasting memory of this song is that, while attending “house assembly” at my boys’ grammar school, one of the older boys (one Chris Best – a geeky, long-haired boy – if I remember rightly) had managed to persuade the Housemaster, Mr. Glover, a grandfatherly old war veteran, to let him play Aqualung, to us all. Best said that it should make us focus our minds on the problem of the old and homeless, as that was what the song was about. I can still see poor old Glover’s stony but bemused face as singer Ian Anderson ranted on at the song’s subject – “you poor old sod”. Now, Glover was actually a most kindly man, so he wasn’t angry, he was just nonplussed by it all. So was I. Why couldn’t they have played us some T. Rex.

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    2. Love that story Paul!
      It’s not transparent at all…you have to dig deep to find out what it’s about. I guess that is the reason we are still talking about it years later.

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    2. Steve, well-said. To me, the lyrics can’t be any clearer. “Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent.” “Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely, making time the only way he knows.” He’s a pathetic creature, but he still deserves some shred of kindness (as long as he’s kept far away from children!)

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  7. I never had a clue what his inspiration was , if any for it before. Comic book super-villain? Aquaman’s nemesis? Now in context, I have more appreciation for it. Still like ‘Living in the Past’ better though!

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    1. I do appreciate this song more knowing what it is really about. On one hand some may say hey…why didn’t you make it more clear…but if he did…we might not be talking about it over 50 years later.

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  8. Such a great song, I only know a few of JT songs but I listen to Aqualung. As few years back I did a post on the homeless and that’s when I discovered what the song was about. “Another Day in Paradise” is on the same subject.

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      1. There are a surprising number of songs on that subject and a list of musicians that were homeless at one time but got back on their feet. I guess we don’t know the name of those who didn’t.

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  9. Max, you were right, I love it and the trivia you were able to unearth for it. JT is one my all-time favorite groups that always sounds fresh to me. I find it interesting which songs the AM radio chooses out of a mega-band’s discography to be annointed with perpetual airplay. It’s this one and Bungle in the Jungle, which cracks me up while at the same time acts as a barrier to casual listeners in looking deeper into the band’s music. I remember with Bob Dylan the song that gets all of the air play is Lay Lady Lay and that is nothing like the rest of his music. Thank you for giving Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull a little texture and I hope it motivates the casual listener/reader to dig deeper into their music. THEY ROCK!

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    1. I didn’t know all of this either…I was surprised as everyone when I found it…yea if they would have made it too simple…we wouldn’t be talking about it now.

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      1. Do writers of rock and roll songs expect us to think this deeply? Maybe they like it when we do, when they actually put some work into it and don’t just write, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” (BTW, my comment was supposed to be a reply to Lisa’s reply to me. Since I did it on my phone through the app, it didn’t end up there.)

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      2. Oh I’m sorry… but I’ve heard Mick Jagger tell people…don’t make things too clear in singing or lyrics…so they will have to keep listening to figure it out.

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    1. That is good Deke…I like that… I didn’t know he played much with anyone else. But…if you want a flute in rock…I guess there is only one guy to go to!

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