Granted: "A Passion Play" is not for the quick emotional kick or pleasing sing along simple choruses. Catchy music, however, is all - and how! At the latest after the second listening you listen to also - must also appear on the text, which it truly is in addition to a superb musical interpretation in itself. Unlike serene irony of "Thick As A Brick" is translated Ian Anderson & Co with "A Passion Play" apart on darkly ironic way with God and the world, here with death and dying. Is heard at the beginning of a heart that stops beating slowly and indicates the moment of death, so we kidnapped the album following immediately in the "world after". Those who are not willing to contend with grim irony of the constantly changing scenes flash-like, is not well know the unfathomable genius of this album appreciate. Who against undergoing the effort to get involved in the associative internal dialogue of music and lyrics of this magnificent album, is kidnapped in a fascinating Passion drama that is a metaphor for our own lives and in a disturbing confrontation with death, dying and the meaning of life can result. A journey through the heavens and the world that throws only light on life and its meaning or its futility (the question remains unanswered and is passed on to the listeners), which resembles an always fatal ending drama, just a "Passion Play". The genius of this album appeared in 1973 has often been misunderstood. This was assured by a mainstream oriented music taste which - in contrast to Jethro Tull - had no eye for the mild absurdity of life that can be described in phases up only darkly ironic. "A Passion Play" is thus something like the musical realization of the theater of the absurd, for the names like Samuel Beckett ("Waiting for Godot") and Eugène Ionesco are. In this Persektive then adjusts the absurdly cheerful insert "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" (on the remastered CD as a video clip!), In which one should not go in to too much secrecy. A Passion Play - that's "Tull at Their Very Best"! A musical and poetic masterpiece that can console themselves that it is the fate of genius to be misunderstood. Too bad, the Jethro Tull so thin-skinned responded to the criticism, rather than to be in peace and quiet of their cause certainly. What a great album! Music history precisely.
