Last Updated on 27 January 2026 by Massimo M.
In April 1969 Jethro tull released Stand Up, their second album.
Stand up, overshadowed by the subsequent masterpieces Aqualung and Thick as a brick, is actually a fundamental record to fully understand the evolutionary process of the music of Ian Anderson’s band. In addition to containing some compositions of extraordinary beauty, to the point of still being performed during their live shows, this album includes stylistic innovations of great interest.
The leap in quality compared to the previous This was is undoubtedly also thanks to the contribution given to the work of Jethro tull of the new guitarist Martin Barre, who took over from Mick Abrahams.
In Stand Up the band abandons the mix of rock, jazz and blues that had characterized the sound of the beginning, beginning to produce more melodic music and that begins to wink at progressive folk. This was such a popular choice with the public that the album reached number one on the UK sales charts. Another typical feature of Jethro tull is the use of unusual instruments in the field of rock is a further fundamental key to understanding the success of this work. In addition to the now legendary flute, a true characteristic feature of this band, we find the balalaika, the strings, the mandolin and the Hammond organ.
The songs go from the classic ballad to the most incisive rock, having as a common denominator the almost maniacal accuracy in the arrangements and lyrics, a characteristic that will accompany almost all the production of Ian Anderson’s band. A record characterized by a great creativity where atmospheres of folk flavor, Fat Man, alternate with others more decidedly rock and where lyricism and calmness are broken by sudden rhythmic accelerations. Clear testimony of the prog transformation are the songs such as Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square and Reasons For Waiting, where we even find a string section, arranged by the excellent david Palmerat the time, and also one of the most beautiful vocal parts of the album, evocative and wide-ranging. And where the inventiveness of Ian Anderson does not arrive, who signs not by chance nine out of ten of the songs on the album, we go fishing in the repertoire of classical music. And so here comes out among the titles a curious name Bourée, my favorite song of the album. From 1700 to the present day she has lost an erre, but it is her, the Bourrée from the Suite for lute BWV 996 by Johann Sebastian Bach, usually played for guitar, since the lute has only Branduardi and a few others privileged.
In this song Jethro Tull respect the original without copying it by behaving like jazz musicians using the beautiful recorded as a base from which to launch into imaginative and intelligent variations that see Anderson’s flute go crazy, here really magical. The return to the theme of Bach takes place when every trace of it had been lost and it is precisely here the beauty of the variations and it is always here that you can touch the ability of these musicians. 
As in those days, the cover was also studied extremely accurately. The design work for this album began with a visit to New Haven in February 1969, during which the band met a wood carver, James Grashow, who later followed Jethro Tull for a week in order to represent them graphically. The cover is in fact a reproduction of a woodcut by Grashow and was originally designed to be opened as if it were a children’s book. Inside the gatefold there was a further reproduction of the band reproduced in the form of pop-ups so that the band could thus virtually stand up, thus evoking the title of the album. Someone, immediately thinking of the improbable cryptic allusions, noticed that from the intertwined hands 
on Ian Anderson’s knees a sixth little finger emerges. In reality there was no cryptic allusion but it is a simple mistake of the designer. 
On the other hand, at the beginning of their career Jethro Tull often had to deal with errors of this type since, for example, their first single was released under the name Jethro Toe and that the third bore the signature of a certain Ian Henderson. Stand up is a record to have in the collection not only for fans of Jethro tull but also for all fans of good music.
Track list of Stand up
A New Day Yesterday – 4:10
Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square – 2:12
Bourée – Johann Sebastian Bach, Ian Anderson – 3:46
Back to the Family – 3:48
Look Into the Sun – 4:20
Nothing Is Easy – 4:25
Fat Man – 2:52
We Used to Know – 3:59
Reasons for Waiting – 4:05
For a Thousand Mothers – 4:13
In 2001 Stand up is re-released with a series of bonus tracks:
Living in the Past – 3:20
Driving Song – 2:39
Sweet Dream – 4:02
17 – 3:07
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