I remember Ian Anderson in concert introducing that song comparing it to our hostage crisis and saying ‘we got ours back’, to cheers from the audience.
About 1980, Coliseum in LA.
Vintage Ian was rather a badass.
Then the UK thugs came along and removed all the firing pins from his wonderful gun collection.
Next thing you know, he’s putting out The Secret Language of Birds and Rupi’s Dance, gone bald and started obsessing over cats.
Divinities: Twelve Dances With God had its moments but I still think feeling that boot heel on his throat during the firing pin confiscation changed him.
It’s sad to watch your favorite lyric satyr get tamed.
I do listen to Divinities now and then and always support the band by buying their latest album.
But TSLOB, Rupi’s Dance and the WTF was he thinking?!? J-Tull Dot Com albums were played once, maybe twice.
His solo albums Under Wraps and Walk Into Light were good and they get played.
It’s hard to get old alongside your musical heroes.
(But The Chateau d’Isaster Tapes
cuts were epic)