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1972 · From the album Thick As A Brick (25th Anniversary Edition) [1997 Remaster]
Thick As A Brick, Pt. 1
by Jethro Tull
The reading
A mock-epic satire of English manhood, packaged as a schoolboy's overreaching poem, that ridicules the myths, heroes and institutions that turn boys into obedient adults
02 · Interpretation
Thick As A Brick, Pt. 1: Jethro Tull's Mock-Epic on Making a Man
The first half of Jethro Tull's 1972 album is one continuous piece of music, but it works as a sequence of scenes rather than a story with a plot. The framing gag, elaborated in the album's fake newspaper sleeve, is that the lyrics are the work of a precocious schoolboy named Gerald Bostock. That conceit matters: it lets Ian Anderson write with the ambition of a Victorian narrative poem while keeping a straight face about how ridiculous the whole exercise is.
The opening lines announce the tone. The narrator shrugs at his audience ("Really don't mind if you sit this one out"), then insults them: their deafness is louder than his whisper, he can move them but not make them think. The famous refrain, that the wise men don't know how it feels to be "thick as a brick," flips the usual hierarchy. Stupidity here is not a deficit but a condition of English life, something the clever classes cannot understand because they are inside it. The sandcastle image that follows, virtues swept off by the tide while new shoes wear at the heel and suntans peel, sets up the album's core suspicion: the props of respectability are cosmetic and short-lived.
The making of a man
The piece then pivots into what could be read as a mock-pastoral. "Spin me back down the years," the narrator asks, and the song obliges with a compressed life of an English boy. A son is born and immediately "pronounced fit to fight"; he has blackheads and wets the bed, but "we'll make a man of him." Trades are chosen for him. He is taught Monopoly and to sing in the rain, twin lessons in acquisitiveness and cheerful stoicism. The pairing of "The Poet and the Painter" against "the do-er and the thinker" hints at the split personalities England expects its boys to reconcile, or more often, to suppress in favour of one.
A rural tableau follows, all horses stamping and kettles almost boiling, the master of the house absent, presumably at war or business. The poet lifts his pen while the soldier sheathes his sword, and later the reverse: art and violence trade places like shift workers. Between these images the youngest son builds his own castles by the sea and dares the tide to wash them away, an echo of the opening sandcastle that suggests each generation stages the same doomed performance.
Class, judgement and comic-book heroes
Around the middle of the piece a new voice barges in, aristocratic and self-righteous: "I've come down from the upper class / To mend your rotten ways." This figure, whose father was "a man-of-power / Whom everyone obeyed," plays reformer and hanging judge in one. His threat, "I'll judge you all and make damn sure / That no-one judges me," is the song's clearest political line, a portrait of inherited authority that immunises itself from scrutiny while lecturing everyone below.
The closing stretch of Part 1 turns to the fantasy figures such a culture leans on. The narrator jeers at courtroom dandies with silver-buckle shoes who model themselves on "the comic-paper idol / Who lets you bend the rules," then addresses the childhood heroes directly. Superman for president, Robin to save the day, the Boy Scout Manual reissued in paperback. Biggles, the fictional British flying ace, is nowhere to be found when actually needed; the sportsmen who "always pulled you through" are in Cornwall writing memoirs. The joke lands because these are precisely the icons that English boys of Anderson's generation were fed as models of manhood. When the real world asks something of them, the icons file for royalties.
Why it endures
Prog rock in 1972 was busy inflating itself with mythology and mysticism. "Thick As A Brick" mocks that impulse while executing it beautifully, twenty-two minutes of intricate acoustic-and-flute arrangement built around a schoolboy pastiche. That double move, taking the form seriously enough to master it while refusing to take its self-importance seriously, is why the record has outlasted many of its peers. The satire of English manhood, class deference and hero worship has aged less than the culture it targets, which is to say hardly at all.
Themes catalogued
03 · Lyrics
"Thick As A Brick, Pt. 1"
Really don't mind if you sit this one out
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 make all your animal deals
And you wise men don't know how it feels
To be thick as a brick
And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away
In the tidal destruction the moral melee
The elastic retreat rings the close of play
As the last wave uncovers the newfangled way
But your new shoes are worn at the heels
And your suntan does rapidly peel
And your wise men don't know how it feels
To be thick as a brick.
And the love that I feel
Is so far away
I'm a bad dream that I just had today
And you shake your head
And say it's a shame
Spin me back down the years
And the days of my youth
Draw the lace and black curtains
And shut out the whole truth
Spin me down the long ages
Let them sing the song
See there! A son is born
And we pronounce him fit to fight
There are black-heads on his shoulders
And he pees himself in the night
We'll make a man of him
Put him to trade
Teach him to play Monopoly
And how to sing in the rain
The Poet and the Painter
Casting shadows on the water
As the sun plays on the infantry
Returning from the sea
The do-er and the thinker
No allowance for the other
As the failing light illuminates
The mercenary's creed.
The home fire burning: 0
The kettle almost boiling
But the master of the house is far away
The horses stamping
Their warm breath clouding
In the sharp and frosty morning of the day
And the poet lifts his pen
While the soldier sheaths his sword
And the youngest of the family
Is moving with authority
Building castles by the sea
He dares the tardy tide
To wash them all aside
The cattle quietly grazing
At the grass down by the river
Where the swelling mountain water
Moves onward to the sea
The builder of the castles
Renews the age-old purpose
And contemplates the milking girl
Whose offer is his need
The young men of the household
Have all gone into service
And are not to be expected for a year
The innocent young master
Thoughts moving ever faster
Has formed the plan to change the man he seems
And the poet sheaths his pen
While the soldier lifts his sword
And the oldest of the family
Is moving with authority
Coming from across the sea
He challenges the son
Who puts him to the run
What do you do when the old man's gone
Do you want to be him?
And your real self sings the song
Do you want to free him?
No one to help you get up steam
And the whirlpool turns you 'way off-beam
I've come down from the upper class
To mend your rotten ways
My father was a man-of-power
Whom everyone obeyed
So come on all you criminals!
I've got to put you straight
Just like I did with my old man
Twenty years too late
Your bread and water's going cold
Your hair is too short and neat
I'll judge you all and make damn sure
That no-one judges me
You curl your toes in fun
As you smile at everyone
You meet the stares
You're unaware that your doings aren't done
And you laugh most ruthlessly
As you tell us what not to be
But how are we supposed
To see where we should run?
I see you shuffle in the courtroom
With your rings upon your fingers
And your downy little sidies
And your silver-buckle shoes.
Playing at the hard case,
You follow the example
Of the comic-paper idol
Who lets you bend the rules.
So!
Come on ye childhood heroes!
Won't you rise up from the pages
Of your comic-books
Your super crooks
And show us all the way
Well! Make your will and testament
Won't you? Join your local government
We'll have Superman for president
Let Robin save the day
You put your bet on number one
And it comes up every time
The other kids have all backed down
And they put you first in line
And so you finally ask yourself
Just how big you are
And take your place in a wiser world
Of bigger motor cars
And you wonder who to call on
So! Where the hell was Biggles
When you needed him last Saturday?
And where were all the sportsmen
Who always pulled you though?
They're all resting down in Cornwall
Writing up their memoirs
For a paper-back edition
Of the Boy Scout Manual
Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.
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