Guys, come on, the hare is what makes the whole song, it's so unexpected and actually quite hilarious, in the midst of the overall darkness of the rest of the album. Also, there is no way Ian Anderson tried to recreate TaAB with APP. It is very different in tone and subject matter, and the fact of the matter is that TaAB was essentially a joke. It was a parody of concept albums and progressive rock in general. I mean, one 45 minute long song, with a long set of incoherent lyrics, it's very silly and super pretentious and is not really supposed to be taken seriously. It's like a Monty Python rock album, but it seems that a lot of people in all of their prog rock wankery kind of fell for the joke and praises it as the most meaningful album ever. And it IS a very good album, but it still really is comedy, executed in a very competent and entertaining way.
(I don't think any other song has made me laugh purely because of its musical aspects, lyrics aside. I'm talking about the free jazz part at the beginning of side 2. The juxtaposition of the three hi-hat hits right before the acoustic guitar comes in always cracks me up.)
Anyways, A Passion Play on the other hand was meant to be a more serious turn after the playfulness of TaaB, and while its lyrics are quite cryptic, they do deal with a serious matter, death as mentioned above. Musically it's also very eclectic and not nearly as accessible as TaAB. It's not a perfect album, but it works if you enjoy it for what it is, something different, and certainly not Thick as a Brick.
Guys, come on, the hare is what makes the whole song, it's so unexpected and actually quite hilarious, in the midst of the overall darkness of the rest of the album. Also, there is no way Ian Anderson tried to recreate TaAB with APP. It is very different in tone and subject matter, and the fact of the matter is that TaAB was essentially a joke. It was a parody of concept albums and progressive rock in general. I mean, one 45 minute long song, with a long set of incoherent lyrics, it's very silly and super pretentious and is not really supposed to be taken seriously. It's like a Monty Python rock album, but it seems that a lot of people in all of their prog rock wankery kind of fell for the joke and praises it as the most meaningful album ever. And it IS a very good album, but it still really is comedy, executed in a very competent and entertaining way.
(I don't think any other song has made me laugh purely because of its musical aspects, lyrics aside. I'm talking about the free jazz part at the beginning of side 2. The juxtaposition of the three hi-hat hits right before the acoustic guitar comes in always cracks me up.)
Anyways, A Passion Play on the other hand was meant to be a more serious turn after the playfulness of TaaB, and while its lyrics are quite cryptic, they do deal with a serious matter, death as mentioned above. Musically it's also very eclectic and not nearly as accessible as TaAB. It's not a perfect album, but it works if you enjoy it for what it is, something different, and certainly not Thick as a Brick.