Too Old To Rock’n’Roll, Too Young To Die Jethro Tull
Richard C. Walls, Creem, 8/76
Artistic maladjustment is never agreeable to write about even if your inclination is to show empathy with the underachieving dog. Ian Anderson (and any mention of Jethro Tull’s “sidemen” is only self-serving, like admiring the spaces in a latticework) is maddeningly eccentric, maddening because he does nothing with his considerable and limited talents. After eight years one can anticipate how much one will be moved (not very), how much one will enjoy (some), how much there will be. Too Old To Rock is chipdip for the mind, only yielding as music as you are willing to scoop out, usually less.
This is by no means a bad Tull album in the tradition of Passion Play or Thick As A Brick, although it presents itself (falsely) as a concept album as did the Kinks’ Schoolboys, Ziggy Stardust and name your favorite. The only uniting factor is Anderson’s stunning ability to couch a well-conceived idea in a cushion of contradicting strings and Donovanesque vocalizing, e.g. “From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser,” in which some pointed words of loss are drained of their lyric-sheet starkness by a cushy MOR recitation.
The feeling throughout the album is one of missed connections, of infuriating amenities, and a few blissful wisps. Anderson/Tull remains a kneejerk capsule for a ready audience of swallowers. Not an indication that the empire is falling, but certainly a reflection of its decline and continued greying.
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