Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick – A Critical Analysis (April 2010)

Llowell Williams

Existing almost since the dawn of literature, satire and social commentary have been and

still are very much ingrained in popular culture throughout the world. As Gerald Erion and

Russell Peterson assert, satire and cultural critique serve an important role in society. From the

Greek playwright Aristophanes to modern day TV personalities such as Stephen Colbert, satire

has found a home within a variety of media forms over time and space. This paper seeks to

analyze a somewhat atypical example of satire, that of the British musical group Jethro Tull's

1972 album entitled Thick as a Brick. A worldwide commercial success, Thick as a Brick is a

fantastic example of how satire has come to permeate a wide range of art forms and

entertainment in popular culture. The album's great success and popularity and the wide variety

of reactions and interpretations it has received over the last 40 years illustrate the unique role

satire plays in popular culture; both as a critique of culture and a cultural artifact itself.

The practice of satire has been with humanity for thousands of years. Archeologists and

scholars have discovered forms of written satire dating back as far as ancient Egyptian times, to

over four thousand years ago. The style became especially popular in Greco-Roman times, with a

number of well known poets and playwrights exploring and expanding the limits of satirical

literature. The Greek playwright Aristophanes (The Knights, Lysistrata) is often regarded as one

of the first popular progenitors of the satirical style, influencing literature and drama for

thousands of years since his time. Over the centuries since, many extremely well known satirists

have published a variety of work, including novelists like Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Joseph

Heller and more recently, television personalities like Jon Stewart.

Satire's persistent existence in popular cultures all over the world (not just

Western/European cultures) shows that there is something fundamental about the literary style

which people are drawn to. As Peterson writes, social commentary and satire provide people with

an outlet to vent or display their discontent with leaders or society, for example. (2008:186)

Satire provides a unique vehicle for dialogue with or against dominate political and cultural

hegemonies, that other avenues don't provide. Often presented in a comedic context, these types

of critiques immediately become more accessible to a wider range of people, providing

consumers with entertainment in addition to critical arguments. It also diffuses the anger and

rage that discussion of such critiques could otherwise invoke with humor. However, it is

important to keep in mind that not all satire is humorous, like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty

Four.

In the twentieth century, in particular, we've seen the use of satire and social critique

applied to a wide variety of media and art forms. Although it's been nearly forty years since its

release, the times in which Thick as a Brick was conceived and recorded represented an era that

would lay much of the social and cultural paths in the West for decades to come. The early 1970s

saw a number of socially and culturally significant events—the ongoing war in Vietnam, the

resultant anti-war and anti-establishment movement and counter-culture among youth, major

political corruption, and a Cold War which framed itself in religious and economic ideologies.

The peace movement, which began in the 1960s primarily in response to the war in Vietnam, had

a major impact on popular culture, eventually moving beyond a youth-based grassroots political

movement into a lifestyle which defined itself in terms of music, dress, anti-establishmentarian

attitudes, and self-indulgence bordering on hedonism. As the wars in Southeastern Asia

continued to be waged by the Western anti-communist nations, many of the Western youth and

war veterans who participated in anti-war protests and adopted the “hippe” counter-culture

throughout the last half of the 1960s began to feel disillusioned as the 1970s marched on, both

with their governments who refused to listen and end costly wars overseas and with their own

lifestyles, which had proven to be fruitless in effecting social and political change.

Art, and music in particular, was heavily influenced by these events. The emerging rock

music scenes from England and the United States began to embrace and personify many aspects

of the anti-war (hippie) counter-culture. Incredibly popular artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin

and Eric Clapton emerged, providing much of the soundtrack to the hippie lifestyle. Not only

were many of these artists engaging in frequent drug and alcohol use, but this type of self-

indulgence began to manifest itself in the music they made. Hendrix became well known for his

extended impromptu guitar solos, The Who were known for destroying their instruments and

equipment on stage at the ends of concerts, and bands like Yes and Genesis were moving the

“progressive rock” scene forward, releasing conceptually-oriented albums with side-long

compositions spanning twenty minutes.

Jethro Tull emerged on the music scene in the late-60s as an English blues-oriented rock

band, but that changed as the 1970s rolled around. The band released their best known album to

date, Aqualung, in 1971 to much critical acclaim. The lyrical content and album organization

lead many fans and reviewers to interpret Aqualung as a concept album, which lead to critics to

pigeonhole Jethro Tull as belonging among the “progressive rock” ranks. Ian Anderson, the

band's frontman and songwriter, was extremely displeased with the conclusions made about

Aqualung and frequently denied the conceptual and “progressive” nature of the album.

In response to the conclusions made by critics and fans, Jethro Tull decided to record and

release Thick as a Brick in 1972. Ian Anderson explains the basic intent of the album: "If the

critics want a concept album we'll give them the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it

so bombastic and so over the top.” (Boisson, 2000) And that they did. Thick as a Brick contains a

single track of the same name which spans the length of the entire album, running almost 44

minutes long. Before even listening to the album, however, it's clear that Thick as a Brick was

intentionally packaged as a conceptual piece—the album's cover resembles the front page of a

typical local newspaper with the headlining story laying the basis of the album's conceptual

“anti-concept.” It tells the story of a fictional local eight year-old by the name of Gerald Bostock.

Gerald ends up in the middle of a controversy following his winning of a local writing contest.

As the fictional news story explains, Gerald's poem, entitled Thick as a Brick, apparently

offended a number of people, leading to a large demand by the public for the judges to repeal his

first place prize. The liner notes within the original gatefold vinyl release contain the other

fourteen pages of the fictional newspaper, containing a number of stories, some of which are real

and others which parody the journalism of the time and the daily periodical format. Throughout

the fake newspaper, one can find pieces of Gerald's poem scattered among the articles; the poem,

as one article explains, will be used to provide the lyrics for Jethro Tull's new album of the same

name.

The “anti-concept” and satirical aspects of Thick as a Brick aren't limited to the album's

packaging, however. The band chose to incorporate several elements considered hallmarks of the

progressive rock subgenre into Thick as a Brick besides the epic song length, including the use of

a number of instruments atypical to rock, including the xylophone, trumpet, harpsichord, lute and

a string section. (Boisson, 2000) Although the initial intention of the album was to parody a

particular style of music, Ian Anderson also trained his satirical crosshairs on other targets from

the time (many of which remain relevant today), including the need and purpose of war, society

and culture's movement towards apathy and self indulgent tendencies, and our society's

fanaticism and obsession with blindly following our ideologies (like religion, capitalism, or

simply our parents).

By further examining Ian Anderson's lyrics, the satirical nature of Thick as a Brick can be

unraveled. The album's first lyrics set the tone for the rest of the piece:

Really don't mind if you sit this one outMy word's but a whisper—your silence a shout

Already we see Anderson's bitter views towards politicians—his juxtapositioning of his

“whisper” and their “shout” illustrating the voicelessness he and others have been given in

contrast to those in a position of power and leadership who remain silent (and in doing so, speak

volumes about their incompetence and spinelessness). However, Anderson isn't merely calling

out our society's leaders—he places fault in the masses as well:

I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.

Here, Anderson indicts the middle and lower classes of living in a willful ignorance, and that the

only way to get a message across to the masses is to appeal to their basic senses and emotions

instead of their rational minds. It could be argued that this argument still applies to our society

today.

Anderson however isn't simply content at revealing these things—he feels a need to

uncover how this has come to be, how people are socialized in our culture to accept modern day

values and subscribe to Western ideologies:

We'll make a man of himPut him to trade

Teach him to play Monopoly and to sing in the rain

This is a type of laundry list of the things our youth need to learn: To be a “man,” to learn the ins

and outs of business and capitalism and to embrace popular culture. However, people don't have

to resign themselves to fall into this path:

What do you do when the old man's gone?Do you want to be him?

And your real self sings the song. Do you want to free him?

When your parent's generation have gone, do you take their place and follow their lead, repeating

their follies? Anderson believes people have a choice and can think for themselves, choosing

their own destinies. He applies this notion of blindly following in one's elders' footsteps, and the

connection this has to war and violence:

Let me help you to pick up your deadAs the sins of the father are fed

With the blood of the fools and the thoughts of the wise,From the pan under your bed.

As these brief excerpts from the album show, Ian Anderson has a deep concern about how

our society perpetuates itself and socializes its youth. His lyrics illustrate his belief that apathy

and conformity have replaced critical and independent thinking. We allow ourselves to use our

elders and religion (and other types of scripture) to provide a model to live our lives by, without

actually engaging in any original thought as to why this is so, or how it could otherwise be.

Whether it's a young man who joins the military to define his manliness and “fight for what's

right,” or someone who embraces the hippie counter-culture by avoiding employment and

regularly consuming drugs—it's thoughtless conformity and apathy.

The real irony here, however, is the huge amount of critical acclaim Thick as a Brick has

garnered, with critics often citing the album as the apex of progressive rock. Clearly satire isn't

something everyone “gets,” and perhaps that's part of what makes it what it is. In a way, these

people (and this author) prove the joke by taking the album so seriously. Anderson's stated that

the lyrics of Thick as a Brick aren't intended to be literary, having instead posed thems as

profound and lyrical while in reality lacking any real meaning. (Tarvydas, 1997) Either way you

decide to take Thick as a Brick—there is no doubt that it shows the capacity satire has to be

represented in virtually any form of art or entertainment. This specific case also shows the nature

of satire, and the ways in which it is received—in a way, the reaction to the form of satire is

almost more significant than the piece itself. A skilled form a satire, like this Jethro Tull album,

will not always be understood by all who listen to it, and maybe that's part of what makes satire

great. As a tool of social critique, satire should not be able to be comprehended by everyone—

otherwise, it could be argued it's not doing it's job well. This lyric in Thick as a Brick articulates

this point well and makes a fitting conclusion to this case study:

And your wise men don't know how it feelsTo be as thick as a brick

Sources cited:

Jethro Tull. 1972. Thick as a Brick. Jamacia: Island Records.

Boisson, Steve. November 2000. “Passion Plays.” Acoustic Guitar.

Tarvydas, Paul. 1997. “Lyric Analysis-An Essay.” Retrieved April 19, 2010. (http://www.thickasabrick.net/Thick_as_a_Brick/Essay.html)