When released 50 years ago, A Passion Play was not exactly loved by critics. According to Wikipedia,
Some members of the band, in retrospect, expressed distaste for the album, including Anderson, saying that “I’ve always thought that A Passion Play suffered more than any other album I’ve ever made from being over-arranged and over-produced and over-cooked” and that Jethro Tull fans who call the album their favourite album of all time “should of course remain in the establishment for the criminally insane in which they probably already reside”.
I first heard A Passion Play in the mid-’90s, when it was already a classic. Now, re-listening to the 1990 CD I bought in Leeds back then (not the 2014 Steven Wilson remix), I just don’t understand why they were so harsh on it. Sure, its 1972 predecessor, Thick as a Brick, was a hard act to follow. The band’s official website says that APP’s “lyrics are, arguably, even more confusing” than that of TAAB, which could be viewed as an achievement in its own right. And then there is The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles, written and narrated by Jeffrey Hammond, deliciously absurd and yet making more sense than the rest of the album.
Owl loved to rest quietly whilst no one was watching. Sitting on a fence one day, he was surprised when suddenly a kangaroo ran close by.
Now this may not seem strange, but when Owl overheard Kangaroo whisper to no one in particular, “The Hare has lost his spectacles”, well, he began to wonder.
I was ignorant of this film until now. Apparently, during the 1973 Passion Play tour, the video was projected halfway through the live performance. Silly, silly, silly. Get on with it!
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