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’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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