Description
Chrysalis: Jethro Tull — Songs From the Wood, Chrysalis / EMI (Audio CD, 2003 Remaster + Bonus)
In VERY GOOD condition! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details
- UPC: 0724358157024
- Catalog Number: 7243 5 81570 2 4
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Chrysalis / EMI Records Ltd.
- Artist: Jethro Tull
- Original Release Year: 1977
- This Edition: 2003 Digital Remaster with Bonus Tracks
- Genre: Rock
- Style: Progressive Rock, Folk Rock, Art Rock
- All songs written by: Ian Anderson
- Published by: The Ian Anderson Group of Companies / Chrysalis Records
- Manufactured: Made in EU, LC 5942
Product Features
- Format: Standard jewel case CD
- Tracks: 9 original album tracks + 2 bonus tracks (11 total)
- Bonus Track 10: Beltane
- Bonus Track 11: Velvet Green (Live) — BBC recording, © 1977
- Edition: 2003 Digital Remaster
- Condition: Very Good — disc and packaging in excellent used condition
- Manufactured: EU
Overview
Songs From the Wood, released in February 1977, is the album where Jethro Tull committed fully to the pastoral vision that had been gathering in Ian Anderson's writing for years. After the prog-rock density of Thick as a Brick and Passion Play and the harder rock of Minstrel in the Gallery, this record pulled back into something quieter and stranger: British folk music filtered through electric rock, with imagery drawn from the seasons, ancient ritual, and countryside mysticism.
The title track opens with acoustic guitar and flute woven together in a way that sets the record's whole tone in under a minute. What follows is nine songs that move between the celebratory ("Ring Out Solstice Bells," "Cup of Wonder") and the lyrical-sinister ("Hunting Girl," "Pibroch (Cap in Hand)") without ever settling into formula. "The Whistler" is perhaps the most immediately accessible thing here — a clean, melodic piece that holds its own against anything in the band's catalogue. "Velvet Green" is the album's most atmospheric, its uneasy pastoral eventually giving way to a brass-and-flute climax that is hard to place in any genre.
This 2003 Chrysalis remaster adds two bonus tracks: "Beltane," an Anderson composition from the same period, and a live BBC recording of "Velvet Green" from 1977 — the latter licensed from BBC Worldwide and offering an interesting comparison with the studio version.
Songs From the Wood is widely considered the finest of Tull's folk-rock trilogy (the others being Heavy Horses and Stormwatch) and one of Anderson's most consistently realised albums from start to finish.
Interesting Facts
- Songs From the Wood was recorded at Maison Rouge Studio in London and released on Chrysalis Records in February 1977, reaching number 13 on the UK Albums Chart.
- Ian Anderson has cited the album as one of his personal favourites in the Jethro Tull catalogue, particularly for its coherence as a complete work rather than a collection of individual tracks.
- "Ring Out Solstice Bells" was released as a single in December 1976, slightly ahead of the album, and became associated with Christmas despite having no explicitly Christian content — it draws instead on pre-Christian midwinter traditions.
- The cover photograph — Ian Anderson in a forest, tending a fire with a cooking pot — was shot specifically to evoke a timeless, pre-industrial setting; the image is one of the most recognisable in the band's catalogue.
- Jethro Tull took their name from the 18th-century English agriculturalist who invented the seed drill, a choice made almost at random early in the band's career; Anderson has noted the name stuck partly because promoters kept booking them after mistaking them for the same band.
- The BBC live recording of "Velvet Green" included here as a bonus track was originally broadcast in 1977 and had not been officially released on CD prior to this remaster edition.
Track Listing
- Songs From the Wood / 2. Jack-in-the-Green / 3. Cup of Wonder / 4. Hunting Girl / 5. Ring Out Solstice Bells / 6. Velvet Green / 7. The Whistler / 8. Pibroch (Cap in Hand) / 9. Fire at Midnight
Bonus tracks: 10. Beltane / 11. Velvet Green (Live — BBC, 1977)
Individual track timings not printed on packaging.
Publishers
Chrysalis Records Ltd. / EMI Records Ltd. Digital Remaster © 2003 Chrysalis Records Ltd. Track 11 © 1977 BBC, licensed from BBC Worldwide © 2003 Chrysalis Records Ltd. Marketed and distributed by EMI. Made in EU. LC 5942.
Picked this up? A short review helps other Tull fans find this remaster.
