Label: Chrysalis Records (US), F2 21067
Style: Progressive Rock, Gothic Rock, Folk Rock
Country: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Time: 39:07
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 262 Mb
For
an album splotched together from a failed recording project, a failed
movie project, a concept involving anthropomorphism and one song from
the Aqualung sessions, War Child turned out reasonably well. It would
have turned out even better had they locked David Palmer in the basement
during the recording process.
Palmer’s string arrangements on War
Child are consistently overdone and too loud in many of the mixes. They
appear in many tracks that would have been better off without them. More
Martin, less David would have been nice. On the plus side, Ian
Anderson’s vocals are quite energetic and the song mix displays Tull’s
versatility exceptionally well. When they’re not buried by the string
section, the band sounds Tull-tight.
The original War Child concept
had to do with the story of a teenage girl in the afterlife meeting up
with God, Lucifer and St. Peter. I’m glad they didn’t go there, as there
is such a thing as spending too much time on religion. The more
interesting theme-a perceptible thread that runs through “War Child” and
“Queen and Country”-is the idea that all of us who live in modern
society are war children who live off the fruits of conquest, whether
that conquest involves shooting wars or capitalist competitiveness.
While we enjoy ourselves in “the bright city mile” or while the
ministers enjoy their “social whirls,” we forget that all of our fun is
made possible to some extent by war and its cousins. Now that would have
made for a very intriguing concept album, particularly since Al Qaeda
later justified the 9/11 attacks on innocent civilians with the
response, “They pay taxes, don’t they?” If we benefit from the spoils of
war, are we still responsible for the war even if we don’t fire a shot?
As
it is, the title track opener is an interesting and unusual piece of
music. Ian was still in love with the soprano saxophone during this
period, so that’s what we hear as the music fades in following the
breakfast-and-battle sequence. The chord sequence is deceptive,
particularly in the chorus, where a key shift takes us to A but the
chorus resolves on Bb before taking us back to the incongruous E root of
the verse. Ian Anderson was by this time pretty nimble with unusual
chord sequences, but this one’s particularly sweet and almost Charlie
Parkerish in the use of the flattened sixth. The rhythmic changes are
pretty zippy, too, especially when they speed up the tempo for Ian’s sax
solo. The lyrics work if you can imagine them as the start of a longer
narrative; by themselves they feel like orphans. All in all, an
intriguing opening if you tune out David Palmer’s string barrage.
(full version: altrockchick.com/2014/03/07/classic-music-review-war-child-by-jethro-tull/)
01. WarChild (04:34)
02. Queen and Country (03:01)
03. Ladies (03:19)
04. Back-Door Angels (05:29)
05. SeaLion (03:37)
06. Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day (03:58)
07. Bungle in the Jungle (03:37)
08. Only Solitaire (01:29)
09. The Third Hoorah (04:51)
10. Two Fingers (05:09)
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