Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick Meaning
Thick as a Brick Lyrics
My words but a whisper -- your deafness a SHOUT.
I may make you feel but I can't make you think.
Your sperm's in the gutter -- your love's in the sink.
So you ride yourselves over the fields and
you...
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Though thick as a brick is defiantly a spoof of progressive rock, it is not done with hate. In the interview track that comes with the new bonus track cd, they clearly state that thick as a brick was born out of the idea that Aqualung was a concept album, which Ian Anderson says it was not, and that the idea behind thick as a brick was to make the "Mother of all concept albums." That being said, the idea that the whole song is trashing the genre of progressive rock is completely false. Throughout the interview they constantly say that the album is a sort of Monty-Python-ish British humor. The way that they spoof it is by making the main concept of the album, the fact that it was written by Gerald Bostock, completely ridiculous, and they make the lyrics a garble of anger at society and things of that manner. To truly understand Thick as a Brick you need to understand the way they wrote it. Since it was a spoof there is not a specific meaning to the song, rather it is a flow of ideas that all attack many of the flaws in society and how we all raise our children to play, and hopefully win the "Money Game" that rules our world. I have written songs that have the same feel as Tull stuff (because tull is my favorite band), and it isn't like what many people think it is. You don't have a real purpose. All you think is I'm going to write about bad things in our world and you do so in the most poetic way you can so that people will listen to it and say "Man that's so deep". So, in conclusion, neither end of the spectrum is correct. Thick as a Brick isn't a beautiful work of art with a clear central idea and deep meaning that you need to unlock, but at the same time it is not a complete attack at the genre of progressive rock, rather, it is the outcome of lots of hard work and lots of various emotions and should be listened to rather than analysed.
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I am a huge music fan in general and I believe that Thick As A Brick is the greatest single song ever!!!
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'Thick as a Brick' is NOT some deep, meaningful spiritual journey.
It is A spoof of the kind of epics that Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were doing at the time about deep spiritual journeys.
Everything from the cover, to the "sounds" is a send-up of Progressive Rock. For an example, the lngthy sound effects section could be a parody of either Floyd's Echoes or VDGG's Lighthouse. The sudden, unexpected breaks and jam sections are what both ELP and Crimson were doing.
And the lyrics? "I've come down from the upper class to mend your rotten ways" is an attack on how 'proper' Rock bands perceived the way Prog was trying to 'make them more respectful and arty'. 'Your sperm's in the gutter your love's in the sink' is again the (percieved0 idea that Prog was all deep and meaninful and "looked down" on blues-based songs about love and sex.
Even the "writer" is such a spoof. The idea that the ypical prog fan was a small, introverted upper-middle class boy with psychopathic tendencies.
I could go line-by-line but it's all basically an attack on what Floyd, Crimson, Yes, Genesis, ELP, VDGG etc. were doing. Any disjointed or meaningless parts of the song are meant to be that way, as that's how "real" rockers look at Prog... Upper class twaddle with pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-spiritual lyrics, all played to needlessly complicated classical and jazz, with lots of "sound effects" thrown in for good measure. And it all appeals to those strange public school boys! -
It is song about young boys and men moreover, who and what they become. It is a scathing examination of those beliefs placed upon boys who grow to be young men not only by family but, by government and society.
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It's about the cycle of growth, affirmation, denial, demise and renewal of a single man and the whole race contextualized in a metaphorical young lad that unifies the concept of the album. It starts with the beach, then the fight, the affirmation, the failure and the demise. All from an actual child's point of view; it is, then a subliminal critique of prog rock as a movement (destined to failure)and of an entire generation as an emancipated mess who will either "become your parents" or nothing at all.
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It's about the trials of growing up
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