Too Old to Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! is the last true Jethro Tull concept album — the story of an ageing rocker left behind by fashion, told in comic strips and short, punchy songs. Released in 1976, it was mistaken for Ian Anderson’s own farewell, savaged by critics, and has been quietly rehabilitated ever since.

The short version

Too Old to Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! (1976) is the ninth studio album by Jethro Tull, and the first with bassist John Glascock. Conceived as a stage musical and abandoned as such, it follows the fictional Ray Lomas, an out-of-step rocker who lives long enough to see his own style come back into fashion. Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span guests on the title track, and Dee Palmer supplies lavish orchestral arrangements.

The musical that never was

Ian Anderson wanted to write a rock musical, in the manner of the theatrical concept records the Kinks were making at the time. He and Dee Palmer began the songs in 1975; no backer could be found for the stage production, and the project became an album instead, presented with a comic strip that tells the tale panel by panel. Its hero, Ray Lomas, is a rocker whom fashion has left behind. He wins money on a television quiz show, discovers that the world has moved on without him, and holds to his own style until the wheel turns and the old ways come round again. The album also introduced John Glascock, the band’s third bassist.

The sound

Gone are the long-form suites of Thick as a Brick and Minstrel in the Gallery. In their place is a set of short, self-contained songs, alternating hard rockers with acoustic ballads, closer to grandiose pop-rock than to progressive rock. Martin Barre plays superbly throughout, his heavy, biting lead lines rescuing more than one track, and John Glascock’s bass immediately gives the band a fuller, more melodic bottom end. Barriemore Barlow drums with characteristic invention. Dee Palmer’s orchestrations are rich, occasionally too rich, and the tunes are stronger than the record’s reputation allows.

Reading up on British prog? The books go deeper →

The songs

‘Quizz Kid’ opens on Martin Barre’s heavy distortion and a knot of rhythmic switches, and ‘Crazed Institution’ turns a sardonic eye on the industry that employed the man writing it. ‘Salamander’ and ‘From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser’ are the acoustic highlights, the latter one of Anderson’s most affecting character sketches. ‘Taxi Grab’ and ‘Big Dipper’ rock hard and cheerfully. The title track is the album’s anthem, mock-heroic and oddly moving, with Maddy Prior’s voice alongside Anderson’s, and ‘The Chequered Flag’ closes the story on an open ending.

Reception and legacy

The reviews were brutal, and it remains the only Jethro Tull album of the 1970s that failed to go gold in America. Much of the hostility rested on a misreading: critics assumed Anderson was conceding his own obsolescence as punk gathered force. He has always denied it. The point, he insists, is that every style falls out of fashion and returns, and that if you hold your nerve the wheel comes round — which is exactly what happens to Ray Lomas. Time has been kinder. AllMusic calls the record far from the disaster it was painted as, and admirers point to the songs, the playing and Barre’s guitar. Others still find the story muddled. Both are right.

The verdict

Too Old to Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! is not where to begin with Jethro Tull, and it is the least progressive album of their golden decade. But it is nowhere near the failure of legend, and anyone who has worked through the great records will find real pleasures here. Come for the swagger of ‘Quizz Kid’ and the tenderness of ‘From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser,’ stay for the mock-anthem of the title track, and hear a band answering a question nobody had yet asked them.

Browse the bookshelf in the footer →