Tobacco: A Small Cigar

Jethro Tull: A Small Cigar

[purchase]

This one comes from an album called Nightcap - The Unreleased Masters 1973-1991. I assume that it was a demo that was never more fully developed for the full band; it would be more correct to call this an Ian Anderson solo track. However, Anderson thought enough of the song to release it again on a proper album, Too Old to Rock N Roll, Too Young To Die, which came out nine years later. The song is certainly not what I usually think of when I think of Jethro Tull. The arrangement starts with just voice and acoustic guitar. Towards the end, a piano part joins and then replaces the guitar. And that’s all. The lyrics seem to me to be delivered with a wink, telling how a party crasher becomes the life of the party, and what he does when he leaves. It’s worth remembering that Jethro Tull is a British band, and class consciousness is much more pronounced there than here in the United States.