01	Kissing Willie						03:33
	02	The Rattlesnake Trail						04:01
	03	Ears Of Tin						04:55
	04	Undressed To Kill						05:24
	05	Rock Island						06:54
	06	Heavy Water						04:12
	07	Another Christmas Song						03:31
	08	The Whaler's Dues						07:52
	09	Big Riff And Mando						05:58
	10	Strange Avenues						04:10

Ian Anderson - Vocals, Flute, Keyboards, Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar and Drums
Martin Barre - Guitars
David Pegg - Bass Guitar, Acoustic Bass, Mandolin
Doane Perry - Drums

Martin Allcock - Keyboards
Peter Vettese - Keyboards

~ Rock Island ~

An introduction to "Rock Island"

After the great success of "Crest Of A Knave" (and of the "20 Years Of Jethro Tull" box set, released in 1988) it was almost impossible to write and record a new album that would meet the same high standards. Although "Rock Island" - released in Spemtember 1989 - used the same approach as "Crest Of A Knave", it was not at all a remarkable album. It contains some excellent songs, while others are rather mediocre compared to earlier albums. All of them appear to be thorough and sturdy, almost massive. Most of the material has a hard rock feel, featuring Martin Barre's electric guitars. What the album lacks is humor and lightness, which makes it all seem too serious. Anderson has been the first one to admit that. The same happened to earlier albums like "Benefit" and "Heavy Horses" and are by fans sometimes refered to as "the dark albums".

When we look at the lyrics much of this album deals with themes of alienation and loneliness, separation from the mainstream of society and wandering down strange avenues. The result is one of the more unsettling Tull albums - there's nothing on here to compare with the warmer, more comfortable stuff we've seen previously. The theme is continued in "Catfish Rising" to an extent, but there it's tempered slightly - 'White Innocence' e.g. is musically and lyrically much more easy to cope with, for example - as if there the narrator is accepting the situation rather than being miserable or angry about it.

All songs were written by Anderson, recorded at his home studio and most of the percussion was recorded at Dave Pegg's Woodworm's studio. To apply different keyboard playing styles, Ian invited Martin Allcock, Peter Vettese and John Evans, but the latter refused having lost his interest in music years before.

"Rock Island" was introduced to the fans through a year long world tour in 1989-1990.
* Julian Burnell, Jan Voorbij




Annotations

Kissing Willie

The first thing we see with the song is that Ian wrote it in a first-person perspective i.e. the narrator, telling the story, is directly involved in it. The second thing we see is the 3-way relationship between the narrator, Willie and the "she" person. The first question to ask is who is Willie, or rather what is Willie? Well I don't know if Ian has a friend called Willie (don't think so!) and Ian usually writes about true events, so perhaps this is one of his story-songs. The title and the line "She shows a leg, shows it damn well", already shows that there is a mild sexual context to the song, so maybe if we look for more we will find it.
Willie, is a common English slang word for the male genitalia (compare the American equivalent "wiener"- J.V.) and it very conceivable that Ian is the type of man who would use a word like this. The Scottish comedian, Billy Connelly, uses this word all the time when he's referring to that part of the body! If we do believe that Ian is playing around with this second meaning of the word, we begin to see all types of sexual innuendo in the lines "Willie stands and Willie falls", "Me and Willie just can't help come, when she calls" and even the line "She eats filet of sole and washes it down" seems to have a second, sexual, meaning.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that the narrator doesn't seem to mind being cheated on. He's not angry at her at all, in fact it seems as if he quiet enjoys it, "Well, she's a nice girl, but her bad girl's better"! And why is this? Again, if we don't look at "Willie" being a person's name we can see a reason for this in the line "My best friend, Willie". It is said (not by me!) that many men build up a special bond between themselves and their private parts, you could almost call it, a friendship! So, perhaps this is what Ian is referring to in that line.
So if we believe all that about Ian's use of the word "Willie" in this song, we see an almost totally new meaning to the line "now she's kissing Willie". No longer is it just innocent osculation between two lovers but in fact: fellatio! Look at the line "She eats filet of sole and washes it down" again, to see what I mean!
* Oran Fitzgibbon


The Rattlesnake Trail

To me, this one follows through many of the themes Ian's already explored in 'Jump Start'; the idea that society is leaving certain individuals behind and they're just going to have to deal with it in whatever way they can: "I'm going for the kill. I'm going tooth and nail up that dusty hill" are all implying images of combat and struggle against adversity to get what you want. The narrator here is clearly destitute ("I wear a hair shirt round my shoulders, got cold stew in my spoon"), but isn't going to settle for that. He wants the good life ("... put that apple in the pie") and isn't afraid to break the rules to get it. "Got the law laid down to the left of me, got the real world to the right" is a line recognising that this person has to choose between a system which is going to keep him down and breaking the rules to get ahead, and is trying to balance the two: "heading up through the middle".
* Julian Burnell
In some of the songs Anderson wrote in the late eighties he applied what I would like to call "American imagery" in which he wraps a story or expresses his feelings: "Farm On The Freeway", "Part Of The Machine" and this song: "The Rattlesnake Trail". The person Julian Burnell describes in the annotation above is presented to us by means of images and notions from the 19th century Wild West days. The main person in this story is a desperado, who doesn't care anymore and has nothing to lose. There are several images from "cowboy life" and "the wild open spaces of the West": "Got a cold stew in my spoon (...) Going to be with wolves in winter (...) dusty hill (...) rattlesnake trail (...) going to ride hard in bandit country".
* Jan Voorbij


Ears Of Tin

The most specifically British song on 'Rock Island, to my mind, is 'Ears Of Tin' (which originally was titled "Mainland Blues"):
"In the late hours of a sunset rendezvous --
chill breeze against tide, that carries me from you.
Got a job in a southern city -- got some lead-free in my tank.
Now I must whisper goodbye -- I'm bound for the mainland."
The first verse seems to be a straight narrative. Someone from Skye has found a job requiring him to leave home and move to a city on the British mainland. He's saying goodbye to someone before boarding the ferry and sailing off into the sunset. Three comments:
1. I don't think this is one of Ian's autobiographical songs. I've always interpreted the narrator as someone born and bred on Skye, in subsequent verses experiencing life in a city for the first time.
2. Travelling from Skye to mainland Scotland is away from the setting sun! So the first line is 'merely' setting an atmosphere.
3. Note the Americanism: "got some lead-free in my tank" The British phrase would be 'unleaded', not 'lead-free'. So why did Ian use it?

"Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity."
This describes the narrator's anticipa ted loneliness in the city, out of his home environment. He expects to feel like a solitary island in the ocean of the everyday concerns of urban dwellers. I read the phrase "cut by a cold sea" in two ways. It could mean that he expects the urban people to be cold and unfriendly, too wrapped-up in their daily concerns to accept an outsider. Alternatively, the narrator thinks that he'll find himself 'cut-off' and unable to identify with the urban people, because his upbringing next to the cold seas around Skye gave him a different outlook on life.

"Now the sun breaks through rain as I climb Glen Shiel
on the trail of those old cattlemen who drove their bargain south again.
And in the eyes of those five sisters of Kintail....."
These lines refer specifically to landmarks near Skye. Driving north from Dun Ringill and Strathaird, one crosses from Skye to the mainland on the Kyle of Lochalsh ferry (I guess this is also the 'Kyle' mentioned in another Tull song; I've temporarily forgotten which.). The most direct route to the southern cities is to drive south-east, up Glen Shiel, a valley lined by mountain peaks called the Five Sisters of Kintail.

"there's a wink of seduction from the mainland."
Money. Overall, I think a major theme of the song is rural depopulation; there's no work in the Highlands, so the young have to move to the cities. I did it myself, leaving rural Wales to work in England.

"Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity."
This repeated verse suggests that his earlier expectation of loneliness has been fulfilled.

"Storm-lashed on the high-rise -- their words are spray to the wind.
Blown like silent laughter. Falling on ears of tin."
City talk doesn't grab him, and the city people can't understand his views. Incidentally, why ears of tin, rather than ears of, say, wood? Was tin ever mined on Skye? Or is tin used simply because it's a dull, utilitarian, rather mundane metal?

"Take my heart and take my brawn.
Take by stealth or take by storm -
set my brain to cruise.
I can see the glow of the suburb lights."
The narrator is trying to switch off his emotions about leaving home, to get through the long drive to the city , and his life there, on 'autopilot'. He half-hopes that urban life will take him over and he'll fit in.

"I'm fresh from the out-world -
singing the mainland blues."
There was a girl where I came from.
Seems a long time, long time gone by.
Wears the west wind in her hair.
She calls from the hill - yeah, she calls
in my mainland blues."
In the light of what I've said, that's self-explanatory - he dreams of home.

"There's a coast road that winds to heaven's door
where a fat ferry floats on muted diesel roar."
A beautiful image: driving along the coast road (presumably not the inland Glen Shiel road - he's taken the scenic route this time!), turning the final corner to see the ferry terminal, the 'gateway to Skye'. There's a ferry at the quay. If you've ever seen them, you'll realise that Ian's description of the Caledonian McBrayne ferries is really apt.

"Island in the city. Cut by a cold sea.
People moving on an ocean. Groundswell of humanity.
Storm-lashed on the high-rise - their words are spray to the wind.
Blown like silent laughter. Falling on ears of tin 'in my mainland blues.' "
I'm not sure what to make of the last line, tacked onto the end of a verse we've heard before, and sung in a different way. Could it be that the narrator has fled back to Skye and looks back on the awful experience of the city, or is he stuck in his 'mainland blues', and only dreams of going home?
* Neil Thomason

The title "Ears Of Tin" fits in with your theory that the lyrics on this album are peppered with americanisms. I didn't know "ears of tin" was an americanism, but then, I've never left America. When we say someone has "tin ears," it means they are tone-deaf, they have no ear for music. This idea fits in rather nicely with the concept of "mainland blues." The narrator is suffering from these mainland blues, and the citygoers, with their ears of tin, don't understand why. They don't get the music.
* Ian MacFarland




Undressed To Kill

We come back to the alienation theme in 'Undressed to Kill'; here the narrator encounters a prostitute (or a dancer in some nudy bar - JV): "a working girl undressed to kill"), and the imagery is twisted - what should be sexually attractive becomes artificial and unpleasantly contrived - "brushing silken dollars on her cold white skin" - there's no warmth or tenderness, just a business transaction.
* Julian Burnell



Rock Island

The theme continues through 'Rock Island', where we see individual people isolated on their home ground ("Doesn't everyone have their own Rock Island? Their own little patch of sand?"). There is no connection to each other ("And all roads out of here seem to lead right back to the Rock Island") and all are fairly dispirited and unhappy in different ways.
* Julian Burnell

The image of a rock island as applied in this song to portray human condition in Western society anno1989 is in my opinion not coincidal. After all Ian had lived on one for quite a few years: the Isle of Skye, where he spent some time managing and building up the Straithaird salmon farm. The cover of CD-inlay of this album shows a picture of the Isle of Skye taken from space.
* Jan Voorbij



Heavy Water

Again in 'Heavy Water', where a character (possibly the one from 'Ears of Tin'?) is finding himself adrift in a city which horrifies him ("It's hurting me to see, smokestack blowing now they're pouring heavy water on me"), among people he can't relate to ("She was a round hole, I was a square peg. Didn't seem to mind that dirty rain coming down" ).
* Julian Burnell

Visitors of this site have suggested that "Heavy Water" was inspired by the accident at the nuclear plant in Tsjernobyl, Russia in summer of 1986. Through this disaster the whole environment of this city became polluted by radioactivity. Even the clouds above this area were infected by radioactive particles and the east winds and rains spread the fall-out over the Scandinavian and Eastern-European countries. Cattle, vegetables, hay even milk had to be destroyed in some countries for being polluted.
But it's not. Both Espinoza (1, p.92) and Schramm (2, p.23) quote Anderson stating that the song is about "Polluted rain - was based on one of my very first trips to New York. It was really, really hot and uncomfortable. Suddenly, blessed rain! I was standing out there getting wet and walking down the street, everybody else was running away from the rain. I realised that each drop of rain that had fallen on me made a dirty black mark. It was raining coal and sulphur, very unpleasant".
* Jan Voorbij




Another Christmas Song

This rustic song starts with three wishes, Christmas wishes perhaps:
"Hope everybody's ringing on their own bell, this fine morning.
Hope everybody's connected to that long distance phone. (...)
Hope everybody's dancing to their own drum this fine morning:
the beat of distant Africa or a Polish factory town".
It praises the importance of home, family and harmony. In Western society Christmas over time has become the particular holiday for celebrating family alliance and community. People do everything to spend Christmas at home (Try to book a flight around December 20 and you will know what I mean). Hence the title. The narrator describes an old man who wants to gather his children around him:
"I'm going to call, call all my children home" (....)
Calling for his sons and daughters, yeah -
calling all his children round."
Is it because Christmas is approaching again? Does he want to re-experience this feeling of alliance with his children who left home many years ago? Or does he realize that his life is coming to an end?
"Old man he's asleep now. Got appointments to keep now. Dreaming of his sons and daughters, and proving -
proving that the blood is strong".

In the third stanza the perspective changes from the one who is calling (the old man) to the ones who are called home. It becomes clear now that the sons and daughters he's calling for are we, the listeners! And what's more important: we can't ignore this call and recognise it immediately, no matter how far away from home we are, no matter how far removed we are from our roots, our traditions:
"Sharp ears are tuned in to the drones and chanters warming.
Mist blowing round some headland, somewhere in your memory.
Everyone is from somewhere -
even if you've never been there."
Which raises the inevitable question who this old man is. A personification of "tradition" perhaps? Are we incited to pay respect to the deeper values, cariied through the ages in the guise of old traditons? At least that is what the next puzzling lines seem to suggest:
"So take a minute to remember the part of you
that might be the old man calling me".

This desire for peace and harmony expressed in the first two stanzas echoes through in the lines:
"How many wars you're fighting out there, this winter's morning?
Maybe it's always time for another Christmas song."

" ....... drones and chanters": the bass-pipes (or its continuous note) and the melody-pipes of the bagpipe.
* Jan Voorbij

On "Another Christmas Song", you wonder who the "Old Man" is. Ian has for years used that phrase to denote God (e.g. "Hope the Old Man's got his face on, He better be some quick change artist" from "Roots to Branches", and others). I think reading the lyric this way gives the entire song deeper meaning, ex: the Old Man calling all his children round, calling all his children home, etc.
* Liam Moriarty



The Whalers Dues

This theme surfaces most brutally in 'The Whaler's Dues'. This man is proud of what he is ("And behind stand generations of hard hunting men") but suddenly finds that the world has changed, and his family trade, without him noticing, has become public enemy number one. "Are you with me (...) can you forgive me?" he asks, but the answer comes back, yelled in chorus: "No!". Again, just as in 'The rattlesnake trail' this man finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and society leaves him (pardon the pun) high and dry. Unlike the protagonist of 'Rattlesnake', however, this man is too old to change himself or his environment, and can only turn to bitterness (the ironic "Now I'm old and I sit landlocked in a back-country jail to reflect on all of my sins and the death of the whale"), and longing for a time that is forever passed, and possibly never existed ("Send me back down the ages. Put me to sea once again, when the oceans were full yes, and men would be men") - compare 'Thick as a brick's: 'Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth, Draw the lace and black curtains and shut out the whole truth'.
'The Whaler's Dues', in fact contains the lines which may hold the key to the whole album: "Money speaks, soft hearts lose, the truth only whispers".
* Julian Burnell



Big Riff And Mando

After "Kissing Willie" this is the second humorous song of the album dealing with the haphazard life in a band. I suspect that this song somehow parodies the long musical relationship between Ian and Martin: Ian with his preference for acoustic instruments like the mandolin, bouzouki, balalaika etc. being Mando, while Big Riff would suit Martin and his electric guitars.
* Jan Voorbij

I read "Big Riff and Mando" as a literal telling of something that happened to the band on tour in the US. Someone ("Big Riff, rough boy, wants to be a singer in a band. A little slow in the brain box, but he had a quick right hand.") stole Martin's mandolin from backstage ("Marty loved the sound of the stolen mandolin"), then called the band while they were on a radio show ("Ringing on the radio, got a proposition for those English boys."), saying he'd return the instrument if they let him sing lead during their show ("Give you back the mando if you let the singer sing tonight"). The band agreed, but had police on hand and when Big Riff showed to collect his prize, the cops were there to get him. He escaped, but left the mandolin behind. That's the way the lyrics go, and I've always been curious to find out the actual details of the incident (where it happened, did they ever catch the thief, etc).

"... a humbucking top line": A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pick-up, the gadget that turns the string's vibration into electric impulses so it can be amplified. Humbuckers were surpassed in the eighties by newer technology, but many electric guitar players like the raunchier sound they get from the humbucker and still choose to use them for certain types of music. A "humbucking top-line" would be a hard, crunchy lead riff on the electric guitar.
* Liam Moriarty



Strange Avenues

And, of course, the whole thing is rounded off with 'Strange Avenues'. Again, we're not just looking at loneliness, but the bitter conviction that you don't belong and others are having a much better time of things: "and everywhere is Main Street, in the winter sun" - if everywhere is Main Street, surely everything's bright and glitzy, full of activity, alluring and happy? Not if you're on the outside, unable to take part because you're not rich/young/pretty/smart enough. In fact, when that's the case, the brighter the city lights, the worse you feel.
* Julian Burnell

This song in my opinion is one of the greatest Anderson ever wrote. After a long and very dramatic intro, the music almost dies down to make us focus on the lyrics. The song expresses an intense feeling of loneliness and alienation, coming to a climax in the heartrending line: "Shall I make us both feel good? And would a dollar do?" and the universal "Are you ever lonely, just like me? ".
A similar feeling is evoked in "White Innocence" from the Catfish Rising album.
I'm under the impression that this song is in some way autobiographical and deals with the early Tull-years of extensive touring, an the inevitable being away from home and loved ones for months.

"Looking like a record cover from 1971": for who didn't get it: this is an obvious reference to the Aqualung -album.
* Jan Voorbij



Sources:
1. Barbara Espinoza: "Driving In Diverse, A Collective Profile Of Jethro Tull" (Kearney, NE, 1999); 2. K. Schram (ed.), Gerard J. Burns:" The Jethro Tull Songbook" (English-German edition; Heidelberg, Germany, 1997); 3. Greg Russo: Flying Colours, The Jethro Tull Reference Manual (Floral Park, N.Y., 2000)