Funny / Jethro Tull

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• Before a performance of "A Christmas Song":
  Ian Anderson: Christmas is NOT a time for heavy drinking, over-eating, and casual sex with farm animals, that's out of the question! So be warned, [bassist] David Pegg.
  • The studio version has Ian whispering:
    "Hey! Santa?! Pass us that bottle, will ya?"
• While introducing the band members:
  Ian Anderson: ...And Dave Palmer...Oh, he's gone for a piss. *The band plays another song.* Ah, David's back. Did you give it a nice shake? Good.
• Ian makes an obvious joke, but it's still funny to hear:
  On bass is John Glascock. We like to call him Brittle-Dick.
• The video for "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles". It's like an amateur production of Winnie the Pooh gone horribly wrong.
• Ian and his "phallic flute". Essentially, he sticks his flute over his crotch in a suggestive manner. Sometimes, he goes a little bit further...
  • During this performance of "Living in the Past", he puts it between Martin's legs.
• After a performance of "Kissing Willie" in 1989, the year the song was released, Ian remarks that the audience are probably wondering that the song is about, with its suggestive lyrics and blatantly phallic imagery being shown in the background during the song. He says that "it's about 3½ minutes long."
• "Mother Goose" contains these lines:
  Saw Johnny Scarecrow make his rounds
  With his jet black mac
  Which he won't give back
  Stole it from a snowman.
• Ian mucking up the beginning of "Baker St. Muse". "Baker St. Muse, take one... Shit shit shit, take two."
• In the booklet included with A Passion Play - An Extended Performance, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond recalls his dining experiences at the Château d'Hérouville - and gives us a Hurricane of Puns:
  "Topically, the château was the only place where I have knowingly eaten horse. It was frequently on the menu as a mane course, so we were saddled with it. Not wanting to appear blinkered I one day took the bit between my teeth and sampled it thinking it be odds on to become a favourite. I did however feel like I'd bitten off more than I could chew." (Note: The Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond One Man Stand Up Revue will not be appearing at Blackpool North Pier any time soon.)
• This hilariously tongue-in-cheek fan letter.
• The "stories" written in the original ''Thick As A Brick" newspaper (all contributed by each of the Tull members who recorded the album) are filled with satirical, punny, ironic, often dark-humored (or risqué) content and wordplay, if one knows what to look for.
• There is a moment in the Homo Erraticus tour in which Ryan O'Donnell spanks Ian's bottom with a cane during the line during the lines "Cruel Bunter-bashing, cane a-thrashing, lines, detention, soon forgot" in "Meliora Sequamur".
  • Another moment from that tour: At the very end of "My God", Ian gives a series of blasts on his flute... which goes on for a bit, leading to bored expressions from the band. Eventually, he's about to have one final blow when he chuckles and says "Not this time!", then turns round only for Ryan to knee him in the nuts.
• In the 2006 remaster of Rock Island, Ian wrote some short introductions for each of the songs. For "Big Riff and Mando", Ian talks about the theft of Martin Barre's mandolin by a star-struck fan, and speculates on why the thief took it: "To brag out? To have as a souvenir? Or to keep for a few years until eBay was invented?"
• In the liner notes for the 50th anniversary edition of This Was, Clive Bunker reveals that his drum solo on "Dharma for One" was recorded in three takes as his solos were deemed too long. Ian's solution? Get a big clock and sit it in front of him during recording, then point at it when his time was nearly up.

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