A$# 006 Jethro Tull | Heavy Horses

Heavy Horses from 1978 is the second of a trio of albums by Jehtro Tull that might be called pastoral / folk rock. It is my favourite Tull record.

Of course, Ian Anderson's flute and Martin Barre's expert guitar work are present. But it's more than that. The lyrics, the instrumentation and the arrangements all evoke images of a rural England that no longer really exists.

Anderson sings about cats (And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps), moths (Moths) and mice (One Brown Mouse), and laments at the coming of industrialization (eg lyrically in Journeyman and musically through the harder-edge rock of No Lullaby). But it is in the sweeping, majestic nine-minute title song where Anderson really brings this lost world to life, as he paints a wonderful tribute to the large regal creatures.

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October's day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day's toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.

The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
With the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk
To bed on a warm straw coating.

...

Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Track listing:
1. And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps
2. Acres Wild
3. No Lullaby
4. Moths
5. Journeyman
6. Rover
7. One Brown Mouse
8. Heavy Horses
9. Weathercock
plus bonus tracks on remastered CD:
10. Living In These Hard Times
11. Broadford Bazaar