Annotations
Hunt By Numbers
This song is about Ian's cats. In
the lyrics the moment is described when the cats
are about to go out for their nightly hunting.
The dark, almost brooding music evokes a
threatening athmosphere. For information about
Ian's hobby of breeding Bengal cats, see this
illustrated interview.
* Jan Voorbij
Hot Mango Flush
Several people have noted the
lyrics to "Hot Mango Flush" appear to
have little rhyme or reason. Let me suggest this
possible interpretation. There is a slightly
Caribbean feel to some of the music. Both Martin
and Ian spent several holidays in the Caribbean.
That being the case the lyrics seem to suggest
just an assortment of images, aromas, people as
seen by Ian Anderson at some crowded outdoor
market in a small tropical harbour town ("wood
smoke, old fish, diesel harbour"),
where locals and tourists fill the small streets
and look for things they fancy ("The crowd moves like a
flock of starlings"). The
tropical heat, the colours, the constant moving
of the crowd, the variety of aromas and the noise
makes one think that "Down at the market all
the world seems to simmer".
These people all seem to be in a kind of holiday
mood: "everybody's
happy about something". The "ice
cream hair" in the second
verseline is a hairstyle from the 50's recently
brought to life again in Florida and the
Caribbean.
The absurdity of the lyrics may
simply reflect the absurdity of what he
saw. (Indeed, it need not be
Caribbean. Take a look at just about any
location where large numbers of people congregate
and, with the right eye, one can see lots of
strange images). Ian has used this technique of
'piling up' his impressions before in the lyrics
of 'Mother
Goose' from the Aqualung album. Both songs
are so to say a 'painting in words'.
When it comes to the song title,
I suppose "Hot Mango Flush" stands for
the mix of all impressions on a tropical day in a
Caribbean harbour town: the movements of the
crowd and the mood(s) they are in, the multitude
of sounds, colours and aromas, the simmering
heat: it's all like a flush, really. An
overwhelming experience. I think the retake,
Mango Surprise, is a musical expression of this
total of IMpressions.
The music was composed by Martin
after Ian had written the lyrics as he simply did
not quite figure out what to do with it.
* RB (USA), Jan Voorbij, Ivory
Rodriguez
"Jive on the
jukebox - Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler".
When heading to various tropical locales, on
thing I have noticed is that, no matter how
remote the locale, two songs are in the
jukebox. The Rolling Stone's 'Jumping JACK
Flash' and The Steve Miller Band's 'The
JOKER'. These are 'standards' in a lot of
bars and areas south of the border and in the
island countries. Since these songs are
'old school' rock and roll (era early 70's) much
of this is referred to as jive.
So, conceivably IA could be referring to the
jukebox selection in the island locale, with the
patrons drunk and yelling/singing along with
these well known classics (as is pretty common in
these situations).
* Rantz Hoseley
El Niño
- Originally the name El Niño was used for the
warm current in the Pacific near Ecuador and
Peru, that arises around Christmas. El Ninõ is
Spanish for 'little boy', in this case the "Christ-child".
Today the name is only used for the years that
the waters of the ocean are warmer than normal.
- El Niño is like a season that comes at irregular
intervals, mostly every four years, and stays for
an unspecified period of time ("Bathing in
uncertainty, another age seems to wing from T.V.
screens in weather rage").
El Niño brings certain expected changes in
climate and weather patterns. These changes,
which begin in the tropical Pacific Ocean, have
come to define El Niño. During an El Niño, the
normally gusty trade winds along the equator in
the Pacific fade ("Trade winds falter as
if in dire consequence"). As
the winds fade, a huge pool of warm water off the
coast of Indonesia begins to flow eastward
towards the Americas. This warm water heats and
adds moisture to the air above it ("Blood-warm
current sends to touch the skies").
This in turn alters storm tracks that blow across
the United States and the world ("Cold thrust tongue
extends its dark and watery touch").
The climate on large parts of the globe is
affected, causing droughts, heavy rains, relative
warm winters and several disasters like famine,
forest-fires, inundations. Fish and seabirds die
or migrate to other areas, causing economical
problems ("Freezing
fish to fry, fail to materialize").
The "little
sister on another day"
refers to the lesser known La Niña, considered
as the "sister" of El Niño. La Niña
features a set of anomalous climate conditions in
the tropical Pacific, but with anomalously cool
sea surface temperatures, strong east-to-west
trade winds, exceptionally heavy rainfall in
usually rainy areas near the western Pacific, and
very dry weather in usually dry areas near the
eastern Pacific. In many ways, the climate
anomalies associated with La Niña are opposite
those that characterize El Niño.
Black Mamba
The Black Mamba is one
of the most venomous snakes on earth.
Mango Surprise
In fact an instrumental retake,
however containing the spoken vocal line
"Hot Mango Flush", based on the more
Caribbean version of the above track's rhythmical
pattern. I think that this retake is in fact a
musical expression of this total of IMpressions
as experienced and described in 'Hot Mango
Flush'. I tend to regard this track as a bit of a
musical joke.
* Ivory Rodriguez, Jan Voorbij
Bends Like A Willow
The album contains three
beautiful love songs: 'Bends Like A Willow', 'The
Dog-ear Years' and 'A Gift Of Roses'. The first
two share a common theme: the narrator's relation
with his beloved one that stayed intact over the
years, in spite of his shortcomings ("my
unfathomable failings").
Please note that these songs, as well as 'Wicked
Windows', are about reflecting on one's life,
which tends to happen more frequently when aging.
They mirror his reminiscing, his self-reproach
and bitterness, his feelings of tenderness and
gratitude.
This tender song is an ode to the
narrator's wife, who has been supporting him for
a very long time with her love and warm
attention. In this way she helps him to escape
from his isolation, imprisoned as he is within
himself ("I'm
swept in the riptide, caught in a fish trap.
Gift-wrapped in my soft self centre"),
in his anger and bitterness ("When I'm caustic and
cold"), his cynicism and the
depressive state of mind he is in ("Summer
sun leaves me as one who can only taste
winter"), unable to break
out all by himself. Not only does this woman have
the strength to last, she also has the strength
to help him grow:
"fill
me up from the cup of love that's she drinking.
And I find, given time, I can bend like a
willow".
She knows him all too well ("reading
me clearly") and how to
anticipate his dark feelings ("It's a sensitive
passage she's sailing"),
making room when he needs it ("Empty nest
left pressed in the pillow. She can swift, she
can sway and bend like a willow").
In the knowledge that she will not break - since
she knows when to bend - he realizes how dear she
is to him and it puts him in a grateful mood:
"She's
a good, a good God-send: she can bend like a
willow".
Note the Ian Anderson contraction™
here: "good God" and
"God-send"!
Finally note the imagery that is
applied here: the images of shipping and
navigation in the first stanza, of warfare in the
third (a reference to the turmoil of an
over-occupied life?) and of
nature/seasons/weather as a red line throughout
the whole lyric.
* Jan Voorbij
Far Alaska
This is another song about
contradictions: the wish to travel:
"To far Alaska: down to
Rio in the Carnival,
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice
call",
combating a fear of flying:
"A
part of me might travel with you
in a freebie bucket seat for one
Business First - at last, forever
Hopeless thoughts of flying fun
Now get me out of here I cry in air rage
psycho-doom
I'm only dream-arranging from the safety of my
room.
I couldn't say if this song were
autobiographical.
* Ian MacFarland
I think that this song is about
the ease of modern travel allowing, maybe not the
masses, but at least the middle class to achieve
the adventures that were only dreamed about a
generation ago. But, while the dream is achieved,
the experience is blunted by modern
accoutrements: "fantasies of foreign
fields. Lofty spires all well appointed".
The prohibitiveness of the cost of foreign travel
is also diminished: "... off season special
deals." Nowhere is too
remote to those with and willing to spend the
funds: "To far
Alaska: down to to Rio... Norwegian fjords."
The relative ease of modern travel is intertwined
with an unease for routine air travel: "a freebie bucket seat
for one". The uncomfortableness
of air travel is also noted on The Dog Ear Years:
"stale breath
recycled in my face. Rattling through
airways....", etc. There is an
observation in the song about the recent
phenomenon of air rage, which is connected to the
massive volume of air travellers.
"Post
me cards and tell me nicely Say you wish that I
was here". A desire to still
cling to the old custom of sending a post card,
which is fading. It's to note the accomplishment
of arriving at the destination and to remember
friends and loved ones. Maybe a hangover from the
days when travel abroad was both time consuming,
very expensive, and often dangerous. (Note that
periodic "post cards" have been posted
at the j-tull dot com website during the current
tour).
* Bob D.
The Dog-ear Years
A Gift Of Roses
After "Bends
Like A Willow" and "The Dog-ear
Years", this is the third love song of the
album, that seems to be autobiographical. The
narrator really looks forward to his home-coming
and being reunited with his love. The song has a
very festive atmosphere, thanks to Andy Giddings
accordeon, calling up associations with cajun
music.
The line "Like a Kipling
cat I walk alone" is a
reference to one of Rudyard Kipling's "Just
So Stories", first published in 1902,
titled: "The
Cat That Walked By Himself". It also is
Ian's own description of himself (at least as far
as the creative process of songwriting is
concerned: "...... and when the moon
gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks
by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then
he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet
Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his
wild tail and walking by his wild lone".
* Ivory Rodriguez, Jan Voorbij
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