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Aqualung, Jethro Tull’s first Top 10 album in the U.S., was certified gold on July 1st, 1971. The song “Aqualung” was triggered by a photo taken by Ian Anderson’s wife, who ended up becoming the song’s co-writer. The character “Aqualung” was inspired by a photo of a homeless person taken by Anderson’s then-wife, Jennie. As Ian tells it, the marriage wasn’t going too well and she’d taken up photography to have something to do while he was on the road. He explains how the song was an attempt to fix things between them.

“I tried to somehow involve her in my world by taking the photographic image plus some descriptive words she’d written on the back of the photograph about the character and trying to evolve that into a song. And so I used some of her words of description about this character in the lyrics to “Aqualung.” Our marriage didn’t last that much longer after that and I credited her with writing the lyrics — a fairly generous, some might say rather foolhardy, thing to have done. But it was part of our settlement that she receive half the royalties to that song to this day.”

Photo Credit: Solarpix/PR Photos

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