The song “Aqualung,” the title track on a Jethro Tull album from 1971 bearing the same name, is quite familiar to those such as myself who were born in the middle of the Pleistocene epoch. Although it’s one of the best-known songs in Jethro Tull’s repertoire owing to its striking riff, its full meaning isn’t obvious. From a superficial reading of the lyrics, it seems to be about a bum checking out girls from a park bench while suffering from chronic bad health.
Still, there’s more underneath the surface. How did he get there? That’s the tragedy. In a time when anti-war songs were quite popular, this somehow escaped recognition for being one.
At first glance, it might seem that the lyrics don’t leave much to work with in regards to textual analysis. The next song on the album, “Cross-Eyed Mary,” which highlights another face of the downtrodden, also mentions Aqualung briefly, but nothing further is revealed about his identity. The key to the mystery, as it happens, is in his name.
By now the meaning has been obscured by time’s passage, but in 1971 it was more obvious. There were living examples then: veterans of the First World War who had survived gas attacks but then went home with irreversible lung damage. This often resulted in raspy breathing, much like what we’d now associate with Darth Vader. It’s quite possible that Aqualung’s painful leg was the result of a battlefield injury, too.
Was Kaiser Wilhelm to blame? Not so fast — he tried to stop the disaster before it got started. Now how about all those warmongers who sat pretty at home while sending their country’s finest into the meat grinder? The guilty parties in that unnecessary war didn’t deserve a drop of blood to be spilled on their behalf.
Aqualung came away with a broken body, but what happened to his mind? It’s not entirely clear how prolonged exposure to unrelenting terror and scenes of utter atrocity affected him psychologically. Whatever the results were, he couldn’t reintegrate into society after his demobilization. The wounded soldier spent the rest of his years sleeping out in the open, often in the freezing cold, frightened of strangers and smoking discarded cigarette butts. The local soup kitchen was his only lifeline keeping starvation at bay. With a normal life out of his reach, he spent his days gazing at the pretty girls and wondering what could’ve been. Finally, in spring, when the flowers were in bloom, the forgotten veteran’s untreated illness choked the life out of him.
Let’s stop fighting someone else’s battles
The character of Aqualung is fictional, of course, but he was a poignant archetype of the Lost Generation, which had been ground up in the gears of the “War to End All Wars.” This kind of fate wasn’t only a British tragedy, of course. It was also repeated, but not as a farce. The outcome wasn’t so different in the various wars that were later fought for globalism, the banks, and Zionism — causes which are getting harder and harder to distinguish between lately. Plenty of veterans returned from the “War to Make the World Safe for Democracy” with their minds shattered — and some were literally lobotomized. The Vietnam War in particular produced another generation of veterans, many of whom ended up homeless and abandoned on the streets, some of them hooked on heroin. Things were hardly better for those who fought in the later spit-in-your-eye wars, other than that their addiction was rather to opiates in the form of Oxycontin. “Aqualung” is thus their story, too.
We can expect this vicious cycle to repeat itself if Resident Bidet’s handlers get froggy — unless, of course, they think big and end up destroying the world, in which case nothing I am saying matters, anyway.
In closing, I have an imprecation for all those politicians, profiteers, white feather bitches, and other ghouls who sent their countrymen off to unnecessary wars in which many good men had their bodies and minds mangled or destroyed. To those guilty parties, I offer a hearty Bronx cheer and a Foxtrot Uniform loud enough to be heard down in the pits of hell, where I hope these externalizers of the Oedipus Complex are enjoying their stay — not!
Jethro%20Tulland%238217%3Bs%20and%238220%3BAqualungand%238221%3B%0AAn%20Unrecognized%20Tragedy%0A
Share
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
* * *
Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate at least $10/month or $120/year.
- Donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Everyone else will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days. Naturally, we do not grant permission to other websites to repost paywall content before 30 days have passed.
- Paywall member comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
- Paywall members have the option of editing their comments.
- Paywall members get an Badge badge on their comments.
- Paywall members can “like” comments.
- Paywall members can “commission” a yearly article from Counter-Currents. Just send a question that you’d like to have discussed to [email protected]. (Obviously, the topics must be suitable to Counter-Currents and its broader project, as well as the interests and expertise of our writers.)
To get full access to all content behind the paywall, please visit our redesigned Paywall page.
Related
-
Der Krieger und der Stadtstaat
-
Civil War
-
On Second World War Fetishism
-
Communist Barbarism in Hungary — and America Today: When Israel Is King
-
A Forgotten Treasure from the 1970s: The Star Wars Holiday Special, Part 2
-
A Forgotten Treasure from the 1970s: The Star Wars Holiday Special, Part 1
-
“Few Out of Many Returned”: Theaters of Naval Disaster in Ancient Athens, Part 2
-
The Man of the Twentieth Century: Remembering Ernst Jünger (March 29, 1895–February 17, 1998)
16 comments
Interesting article. I have never once considered his back story in all the many times I have listened to Aqualung. Now if only we could find out what ever happened to Gerald Bostock.
About 12 years ago Ian Anderson did another Tull project: Thick As A Brick 2 (subtitled Whatever happened to Gerald Bostock). I didn’t purchase it but did attend a live performance of it in Europe. Fortunately the original TAAB was performed with it along with other early Tull material. Unfortunately, Ian’s singing voice has been shot for decades and his creative muse has lost its dynamism. But he’s a hell of a musician, performer, and composer.
I was fortunate to see them in 2004 in a lecture hall at one of the colleges in Des Moines. Seating was I believe 1200 and there wasn’t a bad seat in the house. They did an hour long acoustic set and another hour or so plugged in and it was fantastic.
While the bloat of much progressive rock and Jethro Tull invites sarcastic snarkery, they had a few songs with some steam. Without hearing it, trying to describe Aqualung makes it sound ridiculous, the riffs churn out a dissonant barely-melody, a piano interlude and a grizzly leprechaun singer (in tights) who looks like he keeps a lot of acid by his pot of gold. But it sticks with you. Leaving the flute out toughens it up…the day to day life of the homeless doesn’t conjure flutes and woodwinds easily.
If the character of Aqualung is a dirty societal outcast, he has new meaning in modern times. The people right here, the people who live in flyover states, people skeptical of directives from the leftist commissars who decry all as evil deplorables for not drinking from the cup and exclaiming it is the most delicious mind syrup for us all to agree upon. No it’s not some song that will be theme to a movement, nor do I have the patience to sit through a full Tull setlist. But I bet a Jethro Tull concert would be devoid of modern progressives. It would be chock full of past middle age white people who arrived in vehicles with scant Biden bumper stickers or tacky, naive progressive platitudes. If it is said that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned, maybe Jethro Tull will play the flute as deplorable ideas gain momentum.
I haven’t kept up with the band, but given the opportunity, I’d certainly check out one of their concerts. I’m not sure if they’re touring still, but if I hear about it, I’d give it a whirl.
Very profound and literal elaboration for expressing aversion, distaste, and disfavor of the progressive music of this band which was very unique in its time.
Jethro Tull was a Scottish / English band made up of young men of the 50’s 60’s era, when students participated in an education system where there was a greater exposure to social sciences as opposed to now predominantly technical sciences,, promoting more independent and creative thinkers. They were inspired by famous jazz musicians, horn /sax soloists and poets from the 1800’s to the 1950’s like Jack Kerouac, who inspired a great many others. Anderson’s lyrics touch on very progressive subjects reflecting a profound contemplation of social ills and their future consequential paths. As for modern Nero’s who suffer from intellectual depravity, this great nation exceeds in them predominantly in the last years, (thanks to their “intellectual” grass roots following). I recall Bush Jr. once elaborating that his favorite song was “My Sharona” by The Knack,, now there is an example of profound conservative intellect.
Excellent essay. No more brother wars among Whites.
As one of those men, who, a week after my 18th birthday enlisted in the army ready to travel to distant, exotic lands to meet new and interesting people, then kill them, I have to say there is a large portion of the male population that wants to go to war. The adventurous spirit that sent Alexander into Persia, the Romans into Gaul, Mongols and Englishmen everywhere, still exists. Part of human nature. The “globalists” or whoever gets rich off war, are just another part of the equation. And to make sure it doesn’t sound like I’m trying steal any false glory, I was a computer tech who fought mostly in the bars outside our bases in Asia.
There was a time that I regretted not enlisting when I had the chance. Now, I’m quite glad I didn’t.
Man, that is a song I hadn’t heard in decades. Never really liked it, however, except for some of the guitar riff, though I also never really understood its inner meaning. WW1 definitely broke the back of the West. And then its successor delivered what increasingly looks like the death blow. Maybe my whole life has been spent on civilizational borrowed time. I hate to see one type of white ethnonationalist fight another type. Future Western wars need to be either genetico-ideological (which they will be: prowhites vs white antiwhites), or interracial.
Indeed, I see the First World War as the time that things took off on a downhill slide. Obviously I wasn’t around for it, but the senselessness of it all really is infuriating.
My greatest band from a time when lyrics still held poetic and profound meaning, like Mick Jagger’s masterpiece “Sympathy for the Devil”. Amazing to imagine the intuition and artistic creativity of such very young men of the time. I will be seeing Martin Barre this summer in NY. (“And on the seventh day man created God in his image”, and “When the Eve bitten apple returned to destroy the tree”)
Cool deal, enjoy the show. My favorite version of “Sympathy for the Devil” is by Laibach. It’s interesting to play that one back to back with “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Am I going to Hell for that? Oops, already there…
Janes addiction has nice version if you can find the live version, will check Laibach
Now how about all those warmongers who sat pretty at home while sending their country’s finest into the meat grinder?
Now they are sending the finest of another country to the meat grinder.
Indeed, Bidet’s handlers are determined to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.