Locomotive Breath - Jethro Tull (1971)

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"Locomotive Breath" was released in the winter of 1971 on Jethro Tull's fourth studio album, Aqualung. Despite the band's disapproval, the album is regarded as a concept album featuring a central theme of "the distinction between religion and God". The album's "dour musings on faith and religion" have marked it as "one of the most cerebral albums ever to reach millions of rock listeners". Aqualung‍‍ '​‍s success marked a turning point in the band's career, who went on to become a major radio and touring act. 96KHz/24bit HD FLAC!

This is a video update of the very first Jethro Tull video I ever made. I've mentioned before how it's always tempting to remake old videos, as skills and ideas progress, but that there are so many other great songs that I'm wanting to try a video for that I try not to think about the clunkers too much. Even though pretty much every video I've ever made could use an update, and many need major overhaul, there is a group that stand out as really bad. Two of my old videos that are for me the worst of the worst are Roxy Music's "The Main Thing" and Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQVY_pZpC40 ...I'll leave the old one up to link to the new one. I recently finished the update for the Roxy track and figured I'd get around to "Locomotive Breath" in a couple months....then in the last few days there were a couple new comments on the old video (from nice viewers who seemed to enjoy it, bless their souls! :-) which got me thinking about it and when I realized that people were actually making it though the thing I knew I couldn't wait any longer to do something with it. So here is my new "Locomotive Breath"...it finally MOVES like any video for this track should! I tried to clean up the old elements and use them and also incorporate live clips of the band performing...dedicated to everyone who ever made it through the old version! For the update I used the FLAC version from the 40th Anniversary remaster....sounds much better than the older one (if you watch the video in HD you get the higher resolution audio!).

Recorded at Island Records' studio in London, it was their first album with John Evan as a full-time member, their first with new bassist Jeffrey Hammond and last album featuring Clive Bunker on drums. Something of a departure from the band's previous work, the album features more acoustic material than previous releases; and—inspired by photographs of homeless people on the Thames Embankment taken by singer Ian Anderson's wife Jennie—contains a number of recurring themes, addressing religion along with Anderson's own personal experiences.

Aqualung has sold more than 7 million units worldwide according to Anderson, and is thus Jethro Tull's best selling album. The album was generally well-received critically, and has been included on several music magazine best of lists. The album spawned one single, "Hymn 43".

[Lyrics]
In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all time loser
Headlong to his death

Oh, he feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow

Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train, it won't stop going
No way to slow down
Oh, oh

He sees his children jumping off
At stations one by one
His woman and his best friend
In bed an' having fun

Oh, he's crawling down the corridor
On his hands and knees
Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train, it won't stop going
No way to slow down
Yeah, yeah

He hears the silence howling
And catches angels as they fall
And the all time winner
Has got him by the balls

Oh, he picks up Gideon's Bible
Open at page one

I thank God, he stole the handle
And the train, it won't stop going
No way to slow down

No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down