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Jethro Tull: Too old to Rock'n'Rool, too young to Die!

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Chrysalis Records
Released: 1976.05.11
Time:
 42:17
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Ian Anderson
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.j-tull.com
Appears with: Ian Anderson, Martin Barre
Purchase date: 1993.04.24
Price in €: 15,99





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Quizz Kid (I.Anderson) - 5:10
[2] Crazed Institution (I.Anderson) - 4:48
[3] Salamander (I.Anderson) - 2:51
[4] Taxi Grab (I.Anderson) - 3:56
[5] From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser (I.Anderson) - 4:07
[6] Bad-Eyed 'N' Loveless (I.Anderson) - 2:12
[7] Big Dipper (I.Anderson) - 3:37
[8] Too Old to Rock & Roll, Too Young to Die (I.Anderson) - 5:42
[9] Pied Piper (I.Anderson) - 4:34
[10] The Chequered Flag [Dead or Alive] (I.Anderson) - 5:26

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


IAN ANDERSON - Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Flute, Harmonica, Occasional Electric Guitar, Percussion
MARTIN BARRE - Electric Guitar
JOHN EVAN - Pianos
BARRIEMORE BARLOW - Drums, Percussion
JOHN GLASCOCK - Bass, Vocals

DAVID PALMER - Orchestra Arrangements, Orchestra Conductor, Vako Orchestron, late-night saxophone solo on [5]
MADDY PRIOR - Additional Vocals on [8]
ANGELA ALLEN - Additional Vocals on [2] and [7]

ROBIN BLACK - Engineer
TERVOR WHITE - Assistant Engineer MICHAEL FARRELL - Design, Illustrations, Cover Design
DAVID GIBBONS - Design, Illustrations

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Released May ’76. According to Ian Anderson, This was the first album that wasn’t written in motel rooms as the band was on tour. The original inspiration for this music was a proposed stage play co-written by Anderson and David Palmer. ‘Too Old To Rock ‘N’ Roll’…marked the bands sixth line-up with John Glascock replacing Jeffery Hammond-Hammond on bass. Released just as punk rock was taking England by storm,‘Too Old To Rock ‘N’ Roll’… proved to be a very ironic theme. While the band didn’t do a supporting tour, and never played this entire set live, the album charted at No.14 in the US and No.25 in the UK.

J-Tull.com



This album was summarily dismissed by reviewers, who universally invoked their handbooks of hackneyed "critic speak." Copout terms like "indulgent" and "pretentious" were bandied about, employing the popular critic's method of simply discrediting an album due to its concurrent release with the arrival of punk-rock- - as if that were an intellectually sound critique given the virtually unrelated style of Jethro Tull's music. The main knock on this album is the ill-conceived concept involving an aging rock star. That is a valid observation, but what rock concept albums are deserving of literary accolades? Precious few, if any. Lyrical themes notwithstanding, Too Old to Rock 'N' Roll is a fine collection of independent rock songs that marked a return to the classic Tull style carved out on Aqualung and Benefit. Absent here are the muddled epic-length pieces synonymous with Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, the pop leanings of War Child and the complexity of Minstrel in the Gallery. So despite being the target of disparaging reviews, this album achieved modest chart success and boasted several quality rockers like "Quizz Kid," "Taxi Grab," and "Big Dipper." Martin Barre's unheralded lead guitar style remains a force, rescuing a couple of tracks from the doldrums. David Palmer's orchestral arrangements are, at times, a bit overblown but this album is far from the colossal disaster it's been portrayed as. Jethro Tull's third bassist John Glascock made his debut on this record, and Maddy Prior makes a guest appearance on the title track.

Dave Sleger, All-Music Guide, © 1992 - 2001 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



Ian Anderson should stick to music, because he most definitely is not a storyteller. ?? ??led story of one Ray Lomas, "the last of the old rockers," whose long hair and tight jeans mark him as a person whom time has passed by. After a series of events remarkable only for their lack of humor and originality, we leave the "hero" as he is about to become a pop star in his own right.

So what?

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that Anderson's technical prowess as a composer remains undiminished. The album abounds in breathtaking musical passages. The title cut, for one, is a textbook example of the use of dynamics and nuance in a rock song: instruments subtly creep in during the verses, with the slightest of musical nods to let us know they're there. The music builds with a tension that heightens a desperate theme, then erupts in the chorus. "Quizz Kid" features, in addition to numerous startling changes in texture, several brief but pungent solos by guitarist Martin Barre, whose playing is exemplary throughout.

Unfortunately, the power of these passages and several beautiful melodies is undercut by Anderson's stillborn vocals and lyrical verbosity. Though his attempts at pithiness generally yield nothing more invigorating than:

Clear your throat and pray for rain to
Irrigate the corridors that echo in
Your brain filled with empty nothing-
Ness, empty hunger pains,

it seems fair to suggest that a little less conversation would have saved this album from its most embarrassing moments.

DAVID MCGEE - RS 220
© Copyright 2001 RollingStone.com




The nadir of Tull's 1970's releases, Too Old to Rock 'n Roll was made up of songs salvaged from an unproduced stage work by Ian Anderson and David Palmer. Unfortunately, in the absence of the play itself--which seems to have been rather sketchily devised--the songs don't hang together, despite the presence of a plot synopsis in cartoon form. Worse still, they aren't terribly memorable as individual tracks. The playing is okay, and the singing isn't bad, but there's no real center or point to the album, which sold fairly well in America, but was an unmitigated disaster in England, where critics and audiences greeted it as a self-indulgent mess.

Bruce Eder - All Music Guide
 

 L y r i c s


Quizz Kid

Cut along the dotted line - slip in and seal the flap.
Postal competition crazy, though you wear the dunce's cap. Win a fortnight in Ibiza - line up for the big hand out.
You'll never know unless you try - what winning's all about - be a quizz kid.
Be a whizz kid.
Six days later there's a rush telegram Drop everything and telephone this number if you can.
It's a free trip down to London for a weekend of high life.
They'll wine you; dine you; undermine you - better not bring the wife - be a quizz kid.
Be a whizz kid.

It's a try out for a quizz show that millions watch each week.
Following the fate and fortunes of contestants as they speak.
Answerable to everyone; responsible to all; publicity dissected -
brain cells splattered on the walls of encyclopaedic knowledge.
May be barbaric but it's fun. As the clock ticks away a lifetime,
hold your head up to the gun of a million cathode ray tubes aimed at your tiny skull.
May you find sweet inspiration - may your memory not be dull. May you rise to dizzy success.
May your wit be quick and strong. May you constantly amaze us.
May your answers not be wrong. May your head be on your shoulders.
May your tongue be in your cheek. And most of all we pray that you may come back next week!
Be a quizz kid.
Be a whizz kid.


Crazed Institution

Just a little touch of make-up; just a little touch of bull;
just a little 3-chord trick embedded in your platform soul;
you can wear a gold Piaget on your Semaphore wrist;
you can dance the old adage with a dapper new twist.
And you can ring a crown of roses round your cranium,
live and die upon your cross of platinum.
Join the crazed institution of the stars.
Be the man that you think (know) you really are.
Crawl inside your major triad, curl up and laugh as your agent scores another front page photograph.
Is it them or is it you throwing dice inside the loo awaiting someone else to pull the chain.
Well grab the old bog-handle, hold your breath and light a candle.
Clear your throat and pray for rain to irrigate the corridors that echo in your brain
filled with empty nothingness, empty hunger pains.
And you can ring a crown of roses round your cranium,
live and die upon your cross of platinum.
Join the crazed institution of the stars.
Be the man that you think (know) you really are.


Salamander

Salamander - born in the sun-kissed flame.
Who was it lit your candle - branded you with your name?
I see you walking by my window in your Kensington haze.
Salamander, burn for me and I'll burn for you.


Taxi Grab

Shake a leg, it's the big rush, can't find a taxi can't find a bus.
Bodies jammed in the underground evacuating London town.
Nowhere to put your feet as the big store shoppers and the pavements meet.
Red lights - pin stripes - short step shuffle into the night.

Tea time calls - the Bingo Halls open at seven in the old front stalls.
How about a Taxi Grab.

There's an empty cab by the taxi stand driver's in the café washing his hands.
Big diesel idles - the keys inside - c'mon Sally let's take a ride.
Flag down - uptown - no sweat. For rush hour travel, it's the best bet yet.

Taxi Grab.


From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser

From a dead beat to an old greaser, here's thinking of you.
You won't remember the long nights; coffee bars;
black tights and white thighs in shop windows where blonde assistants fully-fashioned a world made of dummies (with no mummies or daddies to reject them).
When bombs were banned every Sunday and the Shadows played F.B.I.
And tired young sax-players sold their instruments of torture - sat in the station sharing wet dreams of Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, Renné Magritte, to name a few of the heroes who were too wise for their own good - left the young brood to go on living without them.
Old queers with young faces - who remember your name, though you're a dead beat with tired feet; two ends that don't meet.
To a dead beat from an old greaser.
Think you must have me all wrong. I didn't care, friend.
I wasn't there, friend, If it's the price of pint that you need, ask me again.


Bad-Eyed and Loveless

Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
A young man's fancy and an old man's dream.
I'm self raising and I flower in her company.
Give me no sugar without her cream.
She's a warm fart at Christmas.
She's a breath of champagne on sparkling night.
Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
Turns other women to envious green.
Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
She's a young man's vision - in my old man's dream.


Big Dipper

The mist rolls off the beaches: the train rolls into the station.
Weekend happiness seekers - pent-up saturation.
Well, we don't mean anyone any harm, we weren't on the Glasgow train.
See you at the Pleasure Beach: roller-coasting heroes.
Big Dipper riding - we'll give the local lads a hiding if they keep us from the ladies hanging out in the penny arcades.
Shaking up the Tower Ballroom throwing up in the bathroom.
Landlady's in the backroom - I'm the Big Dipper - it's the weekend rage.
Rich widowed landlady give me your spare front door key.
If you're 39 or over, I'll make love to you next Thursday - I may stay over for a week or two drop a postcard to my mum.
I'll see you at the waltzer - we'll go big-dipping daily.

Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die

The old Rocker wore his hair too long, wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end - drank his ale too light.
Death's head belt buckle - yesterday's dreams - the transport caf' prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams in his post-war-babe gloom.

Now he's too old to Rock'n'Roll but he's too young to die.

He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs and prays that he always will.
But he's the last of the blue blood greaser boys all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road sold their souls straight down the line.
And some of them own little sports cars and meet at the tennis club do's.
For drinks on a Sunday - work on Monday.
They've thrown away their blue suede shoes.

Now they're too old to Rock'n'Roll and they're too young to die.

So the old Rocker gets out his bike to make a ton before he takes his leave.
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner just like it used to be.
And as he flies - tears in his eyes - his wind-whipped words echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road doing around 120 with no room left to brake.

And he was too old to Rock'n'Roll but he was too young to die.

No, you're never too old to Rock'n'Roll if you're too young to die.


Pied Piper

Now if you think Ray blew it, there was nothing to it.
They patched him up as good as new.
You can see him every day - riding down the queen's highway,
handing out his small cigars to the kids from school.
And all the little girls with their bleached blond curls clump up on their platform soles.
And they say ``Hey Ray - let's ride away downtown where we can roll some alley bowls.''
And Ray grins from ear to here, and whispers...
So follow me.
Trail along, my leather jacket's buttoned up.
And my four-stroke song will pick you up when your last class ends;
and you can tell all your friends: The Pied Piper pulled you,
The mad biker fooled you, I'll do what you want to:
If you ride with me on a Friday anything goes.
So follow me, hold on tight.
My school girl fancy's flowing in free flight.
I've a tenner in my skin tight jeans.
You can touch it if your hands are clean.
The Pied Piper pulled you, the mad biker folled you,
I'll do what you want to:
If you ride with me on a Friday anything goes.


The Chequered Flag (Dead Or Alive)

The disc brakes drag, the chequered flag sweeps across the oil-slick track.
The young man's home; dry as a bone.
His helmet off, he waves: the crowd waves back.
One lap victory roll. Gladiator soul.
The taker of the day in winning has to say,
Isn't it grand to be playing to the stand, dead or alive.
The sunlight streaks through the curtain cracks,
touches the old man where he sleeps.
The nurse brings up a cup of tea - two biscuits
and the morning paper mystery.
The hard road's end, the white god's-send is nearer everyday,
in dying the old man says, Isn't it grand to be playing to the stand, dead or alive.
The still-born child can't feel the rain
as the chequered flag falls once again.
The deaf composer completes his final score.
He'll never hear the sweet encore.
The chequered flag, the bull's red rag,
the lemming-hearted hordes running ever faster to the shore singing,
Isn't it grand to be playing to the stand, dead or alive.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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