Featuring:

Track Listing:

1. Weathercock - 4.41
2. Introduction: Rev. George Pitcher/Choir: What Cheer - 3.32
3. A Christmas Song - 3.19
4. Living In These Hard Times - 3.44
5. Choir: Silent Night - 3.06
6. Reading: Ian Anderson, Marmion - 2.17
7. Jack In The Green - 2.33
8. Another Christmas Song - 3.56
9. Reading: Gavin Esler, God's Grandeur - 1.50
10. Choir: Oh, Come All Ye Faithful - 3.50
11. Reading: Mark Billingham, The Ballad Of The Breadman - 3.33
12. A Winter Snowscape - 3.39
13. Reading: Andrew Lincoln, Christmas - 3.12
14. Fires At Midnight - 3.38
15. We Five Kings - 3.19
16. Choir: Gaudete - 3.39
17. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/Thick As A Brick - 10.25

Special thanks go to:

Recorded live at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London on a Tascam X-48 Digital Recorder.
Mastered by Nick Watson at Fluid Mastering, London.
Artwork: James Anderson

ALL PROFITS FROM THE SALE OF THIS ALBUM GO TO LONDON CHARITIES FOR THE HOMELESS

During the last few years, I have had the pleasure to perform few times at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London at the invitation of Rev'd George Pitcher and the Venerable David Meara, Archdeacon of London . The history of the wonderful St Brides is best told at www.stbrides.com where you will learn of its establishment as the church of the journalists and the printing trade.

Its subsequent tribulations at the hand of visiting bombers during London's Blitz and its faithful restoration after the war have meant that it continues to count amongst the congregation today the more spiritual of the media folk as well as the more normal, less wordy souls living and working in the City Of London.

This concert, recorded in glorious stereo, captures the quiet, respectful mood of the congregation - most of them Jethro Tull fans - who had been politely asked by me, prior to the start of the service, to reserve their response for the end of the proceedings rather than to applaud at the end of each and every segment, since this might be a little out of place on such hallowed turf and in the context of an Anglican Christmas Carol Service.

Perhaps, as a needy strummer, puffer and crooner, I rather regretted making the request after a couple of songs ending in spooky silence...

The profits from the tickets sold for the service went to The Connection at St Martins - a charitable facility for the care of the London's homeless community. When I went there with George to drop off the cheque for several thousands of pounds a few weeks later, I swear I saw Aqualung standing in the corner looking disgruntled. I suspect that he thinks I owe more than that. And he's right. We all have a duty of care and responsibility to help the less fortunate. That's what marks out in bright letters the fragment of real humanity in the human condition. And, whether you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, of any faith or simply of no faith at all, there is no monopoly on giving. So thank you, oh generous buyer of this CD for contributing to the homeless, since that is where the profits from record royalties accruing from the St Brides CD will go. Profit, I hear you ask? Well - it is pretty much 100% since the musicians, crew and readers gave of their time so generously and the travel and administrative costs were absorbed by my Company. But thanks for asking. We all know of too many charity events where the costs spiral and there is nothing left after gannets have had their feast and invoices paid. Not so this one. Rest assured.

Finally, if you are ever in London, drop into St Bride's for a look and, better still, join in worship with both faithful and doubters alike. Nothing wrong with a bit of doubt. As the goodly Pitcher says, faith and doubt are joined at the hip. And he, as a still-practising journalist, can rightly coin the phrase. If you are not in London, then any old church, mosque or temple will do. Even a new one. It is also the buildings themselves - not only the daily purpose to which they are put - which deserve our support and patronage. They won't be making many more of them, I fear.

Ian Anderson, August 2009

Notes from George Pitcher

Ian Anderson, looking hairy and scary in his checked and tattered coat, was the subject of one of the frayed posters on the walls of our prep room at my minor public school in 1971, where we played Jethro Tull very loud with the windows open to frighten the headmaster. Many years and careers had passed me by since then, when I met Ian in the vestry of St Bride's. And it turned out he was still on his first career, bless him.

He had just played, on flute, the trippingly beguiling melody in Greg Lake's "I believe in Father Christmas" which Greg had come to perform on the altar steps, as a surprise guest in a carol service. This was too good an opportunity to miss and I put it to Ian afterwards, over plastic church coffee, that we might stage some works from the Tull canon. Some 30 years on, I could open the vestry windows and frighten the bishop.

Ian liked the idea, being a fan of the Anglican Church from a respectful distance, and we set to work in a series of planning meetings, invariably featuring fearsome curries, on what to play, with whom and in what kind of liturgical settings. We've experimented over recent Christmases at St Bride's with formats ranging from the orthodox, though far from straightforward, Tull benefit gig, through to the relatively unplugged Ian, with minimal accompaniment, doing guest spots during a service, to the fully integrated Tull Christmas Carol Service experience, highlights from which you are holding in your hand.

We think Ian and some of the extended family of Tull musicians, who have given so generously of their time and talent to support the bereft and lonely at Christmastide, might be ready for a bigger stage in the Church of England and I'm looking into that. Watch this space - or, rather, watch out at a cathedral near you (does Crest of a Nave have a ring to it, Ian?).

And the whole process fascinates me. Because these ecclesiastical gigs by Tull tell a far bigger story than the cash raised for the homeless, important and sacramental as that is. It shows that our churches can and should be used in fresh and imaginative ways, to celebrate all we have to offer. Ian says we should take more pride in our churches and he's right. They should be places where everyone can come, just as they are, bringing their talents to rejoice in the beauty of the building, the music and the spoken, reflective word.

I remember at our first Tull event one particularly hirsute Tull veteran fan turning to his mate and saying "Looks like a church." His mate replied: "It is a church, you idiot." Hallelujah. Ian and Tull have been bringing people into our church who don't normally come, showing them that it's theirs too, not just some creepy place for so-called religious people.

And that brings me to Tull and the human condition. Ian is what I would call a sympathetic sceptic when it comes to Christianity (aren't we all?). But to those who presume, somewhat lazily, that on the basis of - ahem - a somewhat robust approach to organised religion in the early Seventies, Ian must therefore be a rock 'n' roll atheist, I say you've not been concentrating. More accurately, you've not been listening.

That flute soaring across the drums, keyboards and guitars, each so different but making the whole, is transcendent and a glimpse of the divine. That's before you get to some of the spiritual poetry of Ian's lyrics. In our church, I'm sure I can hear the angels clapping, even if Ian has asked the congregation to keep quiet.

Ian doesn't believe in God? I don't buy that for a moment. More to the point, I don't think God believes it either. He knows we're all at the same gig - we're just dancing to different tunes. And amen to that.

George Pitcher, August 2009