Leave it to Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull to anoint the Eighties with a concept album about the erosion of old values in today's rapidly devolving world. Anderson observes the entropy of spirit that's got individuals and nations in its icy grip, and, with a noble tilt to his head, he unsheathes his excalibur and stalks off to slay the beast that visits this plague upon the motherland.

Though it's hard to believe this is happening in 1982, there is something comfortingly antiquarian about The Broadsword and the Beast. Anderson often embellishes his morality plays with entrancingly lyrical, flawlessly executed ensemble passages, and "Clasp" and "Flying Colours," in particular, have a restless, brooding grace about them. At the same time, there's something disarming going on. The alienation and foreboding of Peter-John Vettese's synthesizer, combined with the heavy-handedness of many of Anderson's lyrics, seem at odds with Jethro Tull's more lissome English folk leanings. Vettese plays very much in the style of his predecessor, Eddie Jobson, sketching a frenetic desolation that mirrors the coldness with which Anderson apparently views the modern world.

There's nothing wrong with living in the past, perhaps. Indeed, Ian Anderson can make the wisdom of the ages seem preferable to the rootless philandering of the present day. But on The Broadsword and the Beast, the real beast may be Anderson's penchant for ponderous sermonizing.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."