Heavy Horses

Heavy Horses is Jethro Tull’s eleventh studio album and the second in their unofficial “Folk Rock Trilogy” of albums, beginning with 1977’s Songs From The Wood and concluding with 1979’s Stormwatch.

Musically, it is noted for a slightly darker overall feeling than Songs From The Woods, reflecting changing moods in the late 70’s and minor tensions within the band.

Released to mostly warm reviews, the 1978 tour in support of the album is notable for producing the band’s first official live album, Bursting Out, and a special show at Madison Square Garden that was broadcast live in England and America.

The band members share their feelings on the album:

“Probably the best. I know that Aqualung and Thick As A Brick from the early days are much praised, but they were steps on Ian’s way to becoming a musician and band leader of a group like Jethro Tull. Aqualung, which is like the Bible of Jethro Tull for the fans, is good, but it’s flawed – but it’s good because of the youthful exuberance and naive belief of what those musicians were doing. But Songs From The Woods, Heavy Horses and to a lesser extent, Stormwatch, were the output of considered effort by members of the band at that time. They’re Ian’s songs, and they were truly representative of what we were, in that we’d moved to a point where we were creating material that, whilst it wasn’t totally unique and original, was bordering on that. Heavy Horses is a crafted album. For me, Songs From The Woods and Heavy Horses really do cut the mustard, they really do.”
- Dee Palmer, strings arrangements and additional keyboards.

“I thought that like Songs From The Woods it was a really good mixture of the different elements and aspects of what Jethro Tull were, bringing all those things together in an album, from riffy things, to guitar-driven things, to melodic things, to acoustic things. It put into a package everything that epitomized Jethro Tull. Heavy Horses would certainly be in the top five Tull albums. Probably in the middle of the top five. Yes, at number two-and-a-half…”
- Martin Barre, guitar.

“I’d probably put it at the bottom of the Top Ten or the beginning of the Top Twenty. The title track to this day is one I still enjoy playing, and there are some good moments on the album which act as a follow-up to Songs From The Wood in that little folk-rock era of Jethro Tull – which wasn’t about folk music in the sense of the historical repertoire that’s part of the traditions and culture of the UK, it was just an interpretation and borrowing of a certain notion, a feeling of it. Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses were partners in an exploration of something that was not true to form in terms of either musical or lyrical content but it was ‘along the lines’ of – in the same way that classical composers would often borrow from elements of folk music or other traditions that were fertile ground for developing their own music. But overall, I do think that Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses encapsulate the element of folk-prog-rock… Yes, that’s as good a way as any of describing Heavy Horses – it’s one of Jethro Tull’s folk-prog-rock albums!”
- Ian Anderson, vocals, flute, acoustic guitar.