#jethro tull

Sweet Dream - Jethro Tull (peaked at Number 7)

I may have already said, I love me some Jethro Tull! I don't think I know this one, though. Looking at it, the songs I know best seems to mostly be their 1970s ones, so I guess that makes sense. And to be honest, if it weren't for Ian Anderson's very distinctive voice, I have no clue listening without context if I'd recognise this as a Jethro Tull track at all, it's got barely any flute right up until the final thirty seconds or so, going heavy instead on bombastic brass, a guitar riff nicked right out of a Led Zeppelin song and later on some pretty intense use of cowbell. None of which are completely outside of Jethro Tull's wheelhouse, but the combination has much more of a standard hard rock vibe than I usually associate with the group. Or perhaps I just miss the flute, love me some flute.

The lyrics, at least, are suitably weird. As far as I can tell, they're about the singer appearing, succubus-like, in the night to woo their young lover away, hence lines about how you'll hear me calling in your sweet dream / Can't hear your daddy's warning cry, promising that you're going back to be all the things you want to be / While in sweet dreams you softly sigh. Things turn a bit darker as they exhort you to get out and get what you can / While your mummy's at home a-sleeping, describing you leaving and starting your parents' car, all wrapped up tightly in the coat you borrowed from me, promising that your place of resting is not far / You hear my voice is calling / To be mine again. Which... okay, the band were in their early twenties at this point, which definitely makes it a bit less weird, but still. Definite potential for creepiness here, it feels like Ian's playing into a super sinister, unwholesome sort of character.

And indeed, there does exist a music video, made much later, set in an old-timey abandoned cinema, with Ian playing some sort of vampire. I cannot recommend it enough, there's an Igor lookalike, Ian Anderson rises from a coffin in Bela Lugosi get-up, there are all sort of little visual references to Nosferatu and other 1920s German expressionist films, there are clips from the Cabinet of Dr. Caligaria, the whole video's shrouded in dry ice smoke, there's some completely inexplicable nonsense with huge balloons, a ballerina, a tarantula with laser eyes, a creepy nun, many, many candles. It's a good time, basically. Also, it's a different version of the song with way more flute, so you know, added bonus, if you like that kind of thing too (which I very much do).

Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town - Kenny Rogers (2)

Hmm. I thought this was a song that I'd know, but listening, I'm not sure it is at all. In my head, I thought it was about a man in love with a prostitute, a sort of country version of the Police's Roxanne. And I maintain that that probably is a song that exists, it's the sort of downbeat small-town story that country music's good at telling. Kenny's got a sad kind of voice, too, all husky and creaky, so as he launched into the song, singing about how you've painted up your lips and rolled and curled your tinted hair, I thought I was on solid ground. Ruby, he asks, are you contemplatin' goin' out somewhere?

Except then verse two gets going, and I realise that this might not be the story I thought it was, because suddenly he's singing about how it wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war / But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore. Yup, it turns out this is a Vietnam War song, and quite a depressing one, too, told from the perspective of a veteran who's come back injured. Ruby, in this telling, isn't some unrequited crush for Kenny to pine after, she's his girlfriend. Or perhaps not for much longer, because she clearly doesn't have much time for him, now that he's back. And this is something Kenny does initially seem to understand, with lines about how it's hard to love a man whose legs are paralyzed / And the wants and the needs of a woman your age, Ruby, I realize. But as she leaves, this understanding gives way to a bitter rage, with Kenny swearing that if I could move, I'd get my gun and put her in the ground / Oh, Ruby, don't take your love to town. Talk about dark!

As short stories go, it's pretty compelling, I found myself really sympathising with Kenny, right up until that sudden, murderous urge, which comes completely out of the blue, but not in a bad way, more in the sense of somebody hitting their breaking point and just snapping, worn down by so much ill-treatment. There's an irony to it, since the very injury that's caused all Kenny's problems is stopping him acting on his impulses here. And honestly, I feel for Ruby, too, in all this, because while the song sets her up as a pretty unlikable hussy, you do still get the feeling that things have been hard for her, too, that there's probably more to the story than Kenny's letting on. He admits himself that I'm not the man I used to be, and given how quickly his impulses turn violent, you have to wonder if that line's about more than just his physical injuries. Which in turn makes this in retrospect also into a song about the lasting impact of the Vietnam War, the sad, messy situations it creates even after the men have come back home.

Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday - Stevie Wonder (2)

And some Stevie Wonder to wrap up, nice! This is a very straightforward, bittersweet sort of ballad, Stevie longing to turn back time and go back to a time before his love dumped him, back to yester-me, yester-you, yesterday. I was pleasantly charmed by this wordplay at first, but the more Stevie leans into it - and he really does lean into it here - the stupider I'm afraid it's starting to sound to me, and that's before he gets into lines asking what happened to that yesterglow, reminiscing about a pair of yesterfools, chasing after those yesterdreams. Ugh. I get it, the song has a shtick.

Fortunately, the song does at least sound good, which doesn't quite make up for how irritating I find the lyrics, but it does make it a bit more listenable. Stevie's voice is, as ever, very easy on the ear, by turns smooth as silk and then rougher, picking up just the tiniest bit of an edge. His backing singers are giving it their all, and when you add guitar licks, a bit of bass, some slinky bongo percussion, expressive strings, and some well-timed mmmm-hmmms, you end up with something that despite the dumb lyrics is still perfectly pleasant to listen to.

But yeah, compared to other recent Stevie Wonder songs, Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday just isn't my favourite. It's not bad, but it's kind of nothingy. And there might be a reason for that, because looking into how the song came to be, it sounds like Stevie was having vocal problems at the time. Needing to rest his voice, his label thus put out a whole string of older material, stuff he'd recorded years ago and never got round to releasing, this track included. Except I feel like that's always going to get you some kinda meh songs, because if something was really good, it would have been released back when it was initially recorded. Oh, well. Can't fault Stevie for that, I suppose. Hope he gets better soon, though, and we get some new stuff!

Hmm, okay. If I were grading here based purely on how much fun I had listening to a song, then it would be Jethro Tull for sure this week. But alas, most of the fun I had there was linked to a music video that only got made in 1981, which we're a full 12 years away from. So, in the (slightly arbitrary) spirit of this blog, I think I can't count it. So, purely on the merits of the songmanship, which is totally a word that exists...