Tracks:
1 Weathercock 4:41
2 Introduction: Rev. George Pitcher/Choir: What Cheer 3:32
3 A Christmas Song 3:19
4 Living In These Hard Times 3:44
5 Choir: Silent Night 3:06
6 Reading: Ian Anderson, Marmion 2:17
7 Jack In The Green 2:33
8 Another Christmas Song 3:56
9 Reading: Gavin Esler, God's Grandeur 1:50
10 Choir: Oh, Come All Ye Faithful 3:50
11 Reading: Mark Billingham, The Ballad Of The Breadman 3:33
12 A Winter Snowscape 3:39
13 Reading: Andrew Lincoln, Christmas 3:12
14 Fires At Midnight 3:38
15 We Five Kings 3:19
16 Choir: Gaudete 3:39
17 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/Thick As A Brick 10:25
Notes from Ian Anderson
During the last few years, I have had the pleasure to perform few times at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London at the invitation of Rev'd George Pitcher and the Venerable David Meara, Archdeacon of London. The history of the wonderful St Brides is best told at www.stbrides.com where you will learn of its establishment as the church of the journalists and the printing trade.
Its subsequent tribulations at the hand of visiting bombers during London's Blitz and its faithful restoration after the war have meant that it continues to count amongst the congregation today the more spiritual of the media folk as well as the more normal, less wordy souls living and working in the City Of London.
This concert, recorded in glorious stereo, captures the quiet, respectful mood of the congregation - most of them Jethro Tull fans - who had been politely asked by me, prior to the start of the service, to reserve their response for the end of the proceedings rather than to applaud at the end of each and every segment, since this might be a little out of place on such hallowed turf and in the context of an Anglican Christmas Carol Service.
Perhaps, as a needy strummer, puffer and crooner, I rather regretted making the request after a couple of songs ending in spooky silence...
The profits from the tickets sold for the service went to The Connection at St Martins - a charitable facility for the care of the London's homeless community. When I went there with George to drop off the cheque for several thousands of pounds a few weeks later, I swear I saw Aqualung standing in the corner looking disgruntled. I suspect that he thinks I owe more than that. And he's right. We all have a duty of care and responsibility to help the less fortunate. That's what marks out in bright letters the fragment of real humanity in the human condition. And, whether you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, of any faith or simply of no faith at all, there is no monopoly on giving. So thank you, oh generous buyer of this CD for contributing to the homeless, since that is where the profits from record royalties accruing from the St Brides CD will go. Profit, I hear you ask? Well - it is pretty much 100% since the musicians, crew and readers gave of their time so generously and the travel and administrative costs were absorbed by my Company. But thanks for asking. We all know of too many charity events where the costs spiral and there is nothing left after gannets have had their feast and invoices paid. Not so this one. Rest assured.
Finally, if you are ever in London, drop into St Bride's for a look and, better still, join in worship with both faithful and doubters alike. Nothing wrong with a bit of doubt. As the goodly Pitcher says, faith and doubt are joined at the hip. And he, as a still-practising journalist, can rightly coin the phrase. If you are not in London, then any old church, mosque or temple will do. Even a new one. It is also the buildings themselves - not only the daily purpose to which they are put - which deserve our support and patronage. They won't be making many more of them, I fear.
Ian Anderson, August 2009
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