Year: 1973
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 21 mins. 35 secs.
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A magnificient opera house seen from the inside, in black and white. A ballerina lies frozen on the stage, apparently in the last position of a dance performance, her body arched backwards, a trickle of blood dripping from her mouth. The music contained on an album with a cover like this must be really melodramatic, right? Well, not really. Jethro Tull's classic A Passion Play is more like a playful series of musical scenes and story snippets tied together by a common theme and storyline.
The 45-minute composition is made of 16 shorter songs and instrumental passages that could in principle be independent tracks. The story, as well as similarities in composition and instrumentation however make it fully justified to combine them to a single track. There is a forced break at the point where the vinyl version's side A ends and side B begins. This problem has been addressed by the inclusion of the entire album's silliest individual part, The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles which is also cut in half in its middle. This has obviously been done in an attempt to kind of glue side A and B together, by starting the latter exactly the same way as the former ended.
The CD release sees an interesting change. The two parts of the album are included as separate tracks, and Hare has been moved entirely to the beginning of Part 2. This is definitely an improvement with regard to Part 1, since it was its weakest part to begin with. Part 1 is all the better for its removal, which of course also affects its running time. The 21 mins. and 35 secs. mentioned above is the CD version's running time. On the LP version, Part 1 contains the beginning of Hare and therefore runs for over 23 minutes.
A Passion Play originates from Jethro Tull's short period in the early 1970's when they attempted to join the progressive rock movement in earnest. The group that had blues and folk rock roots started writing long epics and appearing noticeably more serious and "artistic" than before. The band's leader Ian Anderson has later made some humorous remarks on these times, which were short-lived.
While they since steered away from the long format, there's no denying that this era produced a couple of classic albums. Of them, Thick as a Brick (1971) has generally been the more favoured one, but here I beg to differ. I have always preferred A Passion Play, which has much more variation and feels overall more positive and entertaining than its sombre, at times even depressing predecessor.
Critics of the time definitely didn't agree with me. A Passion Play received some scathing reviews, and was compared unfavourably to Brick which was thought to be far superior in every way. It is even rumoured that because of the shocking critical reception, Jethro Tull came close to breaking up. Perhaps one reason that helped them get over it was that A Passion Play climbed all the way to number 1 on the U.S. album charts. Jethro Tull's story continued a year later with War Child, once more a collection of shorter songs.
What makes A Passion Play, particularly its first part, so exhilarating is its constant flow of invention. There is always the feeling that the musicians have difficulty fitting all their varying ideas and creativity into the limited time frame they have available. This is not a common thing. It means that the band is working at the peak of their powers, and it is genuine inspiration that drives them forward - all the way to top 20.
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