“I wrote it on a piece of paper somewhere on tour, and I thought, ‘That’s an album!’” A glimpse of how Ian Anderson creates Jethro Tull lyrics

SAN DIEGO, CA - OCTOBER 17: Musician Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull: Written And Performed By Ian Anderson performs on stage at Balboa Theatre on October 17, 2016 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images).

In 2021 Ian Anderson published Silent Singing, a book containing 300 sets of lyrics from his catalogue. While admitting he wasn’t sure if anyone wanted it, the Jethro Tull mastermind told Prog that, to his surprise, putting it together hadn’t been a cringe experience.

If the pandemic was good for anything, it was freeing up time to finish off long-postponed projects. One that finally saw the light of day was Silent Singing, an illustrated book containing 300 lyrics spanning Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson’s whole career.