In an article, originally pubished in
Disc and Music Echo, 20th March 1971, are some relevant
passages, all quotes by Ian: "All songs on Side Two
somehow deal with the concept of God, from a personal
standpoint". (They were posted to me by Andrew
Jackson.)
Annotations
My
God
- Ian: "'My God', the first track, isn't a
song against God, or against the idea of God, but
it is against Gods and the hypocritical church of
the Establishment; it's a criticism of the God
they choose to worship. It's very dissatisfying
to me that children are brought up to follow the
same God as their parents. God is the abstract
idea Man chooses to worship; he [He] doesn't have
to be worshipped. I say he [He] only
has to be acknowledged. Children are brought up
to be Jewish, Catholic or Protestant just by an
accident of birth. I think that's a presumptuous
and immoral thing to do. Religion makes a
dividing line between human beings and that's
wrong. I think it's very wrong that we are
brain-washed at school with a set of religious
ideas. It should be up to you to think and makes
your own decision". ".... 'My God':
This is a blues for God, in the way of a
lament. So many religions operate as a
social service instead of a spiritual one".
* Ian Anderson in Disc
and Music Echo, 20th
March 1971
- The song criticizes organized
religion. I think the narrator criticizes
especcially the fixed, monopolised concept of God
as presented by the churches in the lines "...
locked Him in his golden cage, made him bend to
your religion, him resurrected from the
grave". As
this dogmatical concept is imposed on the
believers by the church itself, it doesn't serve
them much, for if that's all they can see "He
is the God of nothing". Is Ian saying here, that this would be
different if one is willing to make the effort of
developing one's own concept of God, based on
personal experiences, creativity and
responsibility: "You are the
God of everything, he's inside you and me", instead of showing docility in
religious matters?
- Something alike happens in the
third verse, where the image of Jesus is
concerned. This image, imposed by the church is
so definite, that it leaves no room for the
search for and the development of a more personal
concept of Jesus: "And the graven
image you know who, with his plastic crucifix,
he's got him fixed". Both the concepts of God and Jesus are
so definite and full of dogmatics, that the
narrator is confused as he cannot relate to them,
perhaps since they are miles away from his
personal experiences.
Hymn
43
- ".... is a blues for Jesus, about the gory,
glory seekers who use his name as an excuse for a
lot of unsavoury things. You know, 'Hey
dad, it's not my fault - the missionaries lied.'
"
* Ian Anderson in Disc and
Music Echo, 20th March 1971
- I always thought Hymn 43 was like the Nietzsche
"God is Dead"-bit, where he was only
symbolically speaking of religious figures, and
was literally speaking about the religion itself
(when Nietzsche said that God was dead, he meant
that the idea of God - religion, is dead, and
meaningless); how it's been corrupted over the
years in ways that have been said time and time
again. "If Jesus saves, then he'd
better save himself, from the gory glory-seekers,
who would use his name in death"
... This is not ridiculing Jesus, is it? I think,
generally, that Ian is using Jesus as a symbol to
describe Christianity; and that's why he's in
such bad shape in the last verse; so is modern
Christianity, in Ian's eyes... nothing wrong with
the religion, but everything wrong with how it's
being used and abused. That symbolism extends to
the first verse, as well: "Smile down upon your son",
Christianity, "who's
busy with his money games",
etc.. (isn't Christianity as much God's son as
Jesus is?) Ian has said time and time again that
he has no objections to religion, but does object
to some of the organized religion which exists
today. This song is attacking just that; not
Christianity, not the real Jesus, but evangelists
and the like. The Jesus he talks about is the one
they mention on the religious channels: "I
have a message for you. Jesus loves you".
* Alex Lozupone
- Though I do agree with most of what Alex points
out here, I think there is more to say about this
song. First of all it is striking how raucous and
angry the vocals are, supported by Martin's heavy
electrical guitar playing. It is important to
bear in mind that every verse that contains
criticism on this album has this feature. When it
comes to the lyrics, I want to point out, that
the first and the second verse show us the
hypocrisy and ambiguity of people praying to God
and Jesus as well, while in the meantime they
commit all kind of crimes and vices: "...
his money games, his women and his gun", "...
killed an Indian or three".
The second verse and - more explicit - the third
verse attack the violent way in which people in
The America's and Africa were christianized by
the Europeans, especially in the 17th and 18th
century: "the gory
glory seekers, who use his name in death". My interpretation
of the image of Jesus in the last verse differs
from Alex's: "His cross was rather
bloody, he could rather roll his stone". Here we see Jesus depicted as a
tortured man, worn out and exhausted by the
hypocrisy and crimes that were committed in his
name.
* Jan Voorbij
- I think the "rather
roll his stone" lyric is an
intentional double entendre. I think it means
(like you said) he leads a tortured existance,
meaning if he were a real person, because of all
the violence perpretrated in his name, he would
be sent to Hades. And, like Sysyphus, be forced
to roll a stone perpetually up hill for eternity.
And/or Jesus is disgusted of what has been done
"for" him, and would rather roll the
stone (that kept him in his sephulcre and was
removed for his ascension into heaven) to escape
humanity or (more likely) since a spirit does not
need to remove obstacles to go to heaven, roll
away the stone to live like a person instead of a
spirit. That's just my interpretation.
* Rocco J. Casagrande
Slipstream
- "..... is a song about dying. It
doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but it
hints at a life hereafter. There's a line
in it, 'And you paddle right out of the
mess'. It's brief and to the point,
lyrically and musically."
* Ian Anderson in Disc and
Music Echo, 20th March 1971
Locomotive
Breath
- "'Locomotive Breath' is
another song about dying, but it's not so serious
as 'Slipstream'. It's an analogy of the
unending train journey of life; you can't stop,
you've got to stagger on. But it's not that
serious. All of the songs have an element
of humour, and sometimes pure silliness".
* Ian Anderson in Disc and
Music Echo, 20th March 1971
- This song is about modern man ("the all-time
loser"), who can hardly keep
up with the pace of life in our society ("locomotive
breath"). He suffers from
all kinds of desillusions and solitude, cannot
get hold of his own life and in the end resorts
to religion: "he
picks up Gideons Bible, open at page one", in the hope to find a solution. The
verseline "The train
won't stop going, no way to slow down" symbolizes his/our life that goes on and
on without a pause until we inevitably die. At this place in the bible one will find
the book of Genesis in which is described how the
universe, the world and all living beings on it
were created. Roland Tarmo points out that "old
Charlie" is a
reference to Charles Darwin and his evolution
theory, that offered a scientific alternative for
the unconditional belief in creation as worded in
Genesis, thus questioning the self-evidentness of
this belief. In other words: he "stole
the handle",
that for centuries had defined men's position. I
assume that "the all-time
winner"
refers to God.
* Jan Voorbij
Wind
Up
- The title 'Wind Up' has several meanings in
British slang. As Ian explained in a US
radio interview ( 'In The Studio - Aqualung',
19/11/90), he had three meanings in mind: 1. It's
the last song on the album, 'winding' it up i.e.
drawing it to a conclusion. 2. A 'wind up' is a
con, a trick; so Ian uses the phrase to mean you
don't have to trick God by attending church on
Sunday then ignore Him for the rest of the week.
3. God isn't a clockwork toy, which needs
winding-up once each week to keep Him working!
Incidentally, in the same song, the line 'in your
pomp and all your glory...' might
be a sideways reference to England's unofficial
anthem, Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 in
D, Op. 39 ', commonly known as 'Land Of Hope
& Glory'.
* Neil R. Thomason
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