Wave goodbye, Ian
Alright, we’ve finally reached the end! Thank you all for reading this. It’s been a real pleasure to write this — and to see the notes coming in as people read through the whole thing this weekend. (Also, glad to know it still works when you read it backwards. You know who you are.)
If you’ve enjoyed this, and particularly the more analytical moments like the “Aqualung” close listen, the Thick as a Brick stuff, the bit about “Only Solitaire” and the Stormwatch post, might I suggest you may also enjoy Circus of Heaven: my blog about the history of progressive rock? It’s in its infancy — I’m only two posts deep. But it’ll resume very soon and be fairly similar in tone and content to what I’ve been up to here. The best way to know when I’ve written something there would be to follow my Tumblr, where I’ll be posting everything that goes up on that site. I also use that Tumblr to review stuff — namely absolutely everything I watch, read and listen to. I’m completely pathological. If you’d rather know when I write something big without being bombarded by podcast reviews, you can follow me on Twitter, @MJRParsons, where I’m a bit quieter but still link my own work. A final plug for the Canadians among you: you may enjoy the classic prog web radio station I somehow got to make at my real job. Apologies to the rest of you; it’s not available outside of Canada for licensing reasons.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned this week, it’s that a Grand Unified Theory of Jethro Tull is well outside of my grasp. Now and then, I catch a tantalizing notion that seems like the crucial connection. But inevitably it flutters away, leaving the Jethro Tull corpus a pile of allusions, implications and maddening contradictions scattered at my feet. Nonetheless, it has been quite clarifying to get my random, half-formed thoughts out into the open. So thank you Hendrik, for giving me a place to bluster and pontificate and say that a concept album from 1972 is somehow about Donald Trump. (And congratulations on week 300 coming up!!!)
What note to end on, then? Sneering perversity? Maybe something from War Child? Sincerity? Heavy Horses?
Let’s compromise. Something simple, yet bittersweet:
Life’s a long song — But the tune ends too soon for us all.












