Merry Christmas.

I’ll be running out of these Christmas numbers soon. This will be the second last track from Tull’s Christmas Album to be featured here, an adaptation of Bach’s Bourrée.

The tune was one of the tracks on Tull’s second LP Stand Up and was also released as a single in 1969 in Europe but not the UK. It has appeared on many Tull compilation albums.

Jethro Tull: Bourée

Originally on the album Heavy Horses (1978) this was later included on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2003.)

Jethro Tull: Weathercock

Merry Christmas, everybody.

I’ll soon be running out of these Tull Christmas efforts but I’ve made it a tradition here.

Again from their Christmas Album – released in 2003 – this is Tull’s take on a classic tune said to have been written by Henry VIII of England. (But I have always thought it more likely he just took the credit.)

Jethro Tull: Greensleeved

Again this comes from Tull’s Christmas album. Unusually though it was written by guitarist Martin Barre.

One of the more understated tracks on Jethro Tull’s 1971 LP Aqualung was this acoustic ditty, Wond’ring Aloud.

Jethro Tull: Wond’ring Aloud

On the compilation album Living in the Past, was a reworking/extension, Wond’ring Again, which may be Ian Anderson’s masterpiece. A meditation on humanity’s propensity to mess things – especially the planet – up. From forty years ago!

It’s also a perfect example of Anderson’s lyricism, moving from the poetic to the mundane within a sentence.

Jethro Tull: Wond’ring Again

Another from Tull’s Christmas album. I doubt when they started up as a blues band that they thought they would ever make and release such an offering. A sign of softening, I suppose. But then age comes to us all (if we’re lucky.)

Merry Christmas!

Jethro Tull: First Snow on Brooklyn

A bit of “Hey Nonny Nonny” this week. Not from the middle ages but from 1994.

(The oboe is a wee bit reminiscent of Jethro Tull’s Coronach.)

Seal: Kiss From a Rose

Merry Christmas one and all.

This song was on Tull’s Christmas album in a remastered form but originally appeared on Songs From the Wood. This, the earlier version, sounds warmer to me.

Jethro Tull: Fire at Midnight

Tull in their pomp. An acknowledgement of their bluesy origins in the intro leading into a complete rock-out and then one of Ian Anderson’s trademark flute solos. The mix of blues and rock also pointed to Prog Rock leanings but Tull always denied they ever purveyed Prog.

Edited to add. This video has the LP track overdubbed onto concert footage.

Jethro Tull: Locomotive Breath

From The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. Though this one is more appropriate for New Year’s Day.

Jethro Tull: Last Man at the Party

Merry Christmas, everybody.