“The Jethro Tull Christmas Album” was much praised on first release, with Rolling Stone noting admiringly: “The originals simmer with eccentric, eclectic, folky energy, rocking ditties threaded through with Celtic stylings, jazzy undercurrents, Ian Anderson‘s distinctive flute and wry humor.” Allmusic called it “perhaps the most satisfying TULL releases in 25 years.” It included new interpretations of no fewer than seven TULL songs, including their first to be inspired by the holiday, 1968’s much-loved “A Christmas Song”. That Anderson composition, which opened with lyrics interpolated from “Once In Royal David’s City”, was the B-side of the band’s first U.K. chart single “Love Story”.

“Some of the tracks are not necessarily Christmas songs; they’re more seasonal so that gives a broader window,” says Ian. “And then there are a couple of them that I quite often play in the middle of summer and say, ‘It’ll soon be Christmas — it’s in the diary. So let’s kick it off now.’ And that’s part of what I’ve done over the years since October of 1968 when I went into record ‘A Christmas Song’. So, yes — it goes back a long way.”

“A Christmas Song” was joined on the album by reworkings of such pieces as TULL‘s 1976 festive hit “Ring Out Solstice Bells”; “Weathercock”, first heard on 1978’s “Heavy Horses”; and “Another Christmas Song”, from 1989’s “Rock Island”. Also among the re-recordings was J.S. Bach‘s “Bourrée”, another longtime live favorite, inimitably imagined by Ian.

“Part of the joy of redoing those things,” he says, “is that you can…not necessarily recreate, but you can keep all the essential elements of the song and maybe declutter it a little bit and give it a fresh look, but essentially still staying faithful to the original arrangements.”

“The Jethro Tull Christmas Album” was their last studio set to feature longtime guitarist Martin Barre, who composed its pretty closing instrumental “A Winter Snowscape”. Also featured on the album were keyboard and accordion player Andrew Giddings, bassist Jonathan Noyce and drummers Doane Perry and James Duncan. Anderson compositions making their debut included the opening “Birthday Card At Christmas” and “First Snow On Brooklyn”, while traditional pieces such as “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “We Five Kings” were interpreted alongside Fauré‘s “Pavane”.