In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.
I don't really set out to please anybody, and I don't think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single to get radio play. Those are not my best songs, as a rule.
I feel the audience has a right to know if some of the money they're spending is going to a certain cause, and reassuring them the money is going to where it's supposed to be going.
Most of what I've written songs about are things that come out of the confusing emotional, spiritual and psychological period of time when you're going through puberty.
In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.
I'm very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous - when you get it. Most of the time, though, I'm filled with self-loathing and general frustration at the limitations I have as a musician.
