I originally bought this LP album when it came out in 1973. Then eventually I bought the CD of it. I love the beginning of this album which starts off with a great instrumental piece. (Anderson used this same instrumental when he sang a song about a tiger on Nightcap. I don't know which came first, though.)

Up to this point I had never seen Tull in concert and "A Passion Play" was the first time I saw them, right in Madison Square Garden. Before they came on, my younger brother asked me why I was so nervous? I told him that the critics had trashed the album and I was afraid the crowd might start booing them. He laughed and told me, "Don, these are all Tull fans here. They could care less what the critics have to say IF they even read their reviews." So, I relaxed.

They played the entire album non-stop. After the opening instrumental, it takes them some time to get things together, going from one melody to another. I particularly like Side II, after Jeffrey Hammond Hammond gets done with "The Hair Who Lost His Spectacles." There are four sections pieced together that are as good as anything Tull has ever done. My favorite piece is about 2/3rds of the way through in which he opens up with: "Flee thee icy Lucifer, oh he's an awful fellow. What a mistake, I didn't take, a feather from his pillow." Then: "Here's the everlasting rub: neither am I good nor bad. I'd give up my halo for a horn and the horn for the hat I once had." (Lyrics in quotes by Ian Anderson from "A Passion Play.") Now what is so difficult about understanding those lyrics? But to the critics, those lyrics were too "obscure."

After doing the entire album, Tull performed a large section of "Thick As A Brick" and then went off stage before coming back for an encore.
After that they did several songs from Aqualung. One thing I'll say about Jethro Tull is that they always present you with a great show. One oddity about that show was when we spotted a N.Y.C. policeman sitting down on the steps smoking weed. LOL! I guess he got into it too. Other than that, all I can say is if you haven't bought "A Passion Play" by now, then you've missed out on a great piece of music.

I had hoped that Tull would continue with the full-length albums, but I think because of the critics, they went back to doing regular songs on their next album "War Child." The closest they ever came to doing a continuous piece of music was on Side II of "Minstrel In The Gallery" in which they performed "Baker Street Muse."

Again I say, when I pass from this earth and they tell me I can take any two albums with me, it'll be "Thick As A Brick" and "A Passion Play" my two all-time favorites.

I like the Passion Play. I wouldn't say it is the best Tull album. The funny thing is... Jethro Tull never gets any respect. They received a psuedo grammy for best Heavy Metal album "Crest of a Knave"

Now Amazon has some techno dance beat crud for the listening samples.

Other than that I would give Passion Play 5 stars if it weren't for the intermission. Not everything is timeless.

Oh sure, Thick as a Brick was the more popular of the concept Jethro Tull albums. That doesn't mean A Passion Play deserves to be automatically dismissed. While it's true the entire piece doesn't flow perfectly (because of some awkward storytelling moments in particular) it's really not any worse than Thick as a Brick. I think BOTH albums deserve to be in your collection to be quite honest.

Of course, an even bigger question is probably "How many Jethro Tull albums do you need?" since most of them sound pretty much the same. Well to be honest, only a few, and this album should probably not be one of them. Stand Up, Benefit and Aqualung are the ultimate Jethro Tull albums. Pick up those three first. Some would argue Living in the Past deserves to be among the classics, and who am I to disagree? I can't! So go with whatever you want.

So critics didn't like this album, huh? That only goes to show that critics are IDIOTS! The music, the lyrics, the arrangements--perfect. I especially enjoy the little intermission, "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles"; it's really funny.

After reading that "Thick as a Brick" was a better album, I actually bought it, and was I disappointed! I listen to "Passion Play" over and over, but "Thick as a Brick" just isn't as interesting in any way. Typical when you follow the recommendations of critics--what, for example, was I supposed to enjoy about "Kiss of the Spider Woman"?

This and "Aqualung" are the must-have Jethro Tull albums.

Jethro Tull's sixth studio album entitled A Passion Play was released in July of 1973.
1973 was seen as the peak of prog commercially as Emerson Lake and Palmer released Brain Salad Surgery, Genesis gave us Genesis Live 1973 and Selling England By the Pound (the latter was the first Genesis album to hit the US Top 100 peaking at #74), Yes gave us both the classic Top 20 triple live Yessongs and the derided Top 10 album Tales From Topographic Oceans (which was not released in the US until January of 1974) and Pink Floyd unleashed their classic contribution to rock history Dark Side of the Moon.
Also that year, Jethro Tull gave us A Passion Play. The album came to be by accident. You see, initially they were to record an album full of shorter songs at Chateau D'Herouville in France but the band was not happy with the sound so the aborted the sessions (three of those tracks would appear on 1974's War Child whilst the rest of the album would emerge as disc one of the rarities set Nightcap).
Then lead singer/songwriter/flute player Ian Anderson, guitarist Martin Barre, keyboard player John Evan, bass player Jeffrey Hammond and drummer Barriemore Barlow went to Morgan Studios in London to begin work on the proper follow-up to their 1972 album Thick As a Brick (which consisted of ONE 43 minue song which was split into two halves to accomodate the vinyl record format).
Like TAAB, A Passion Play was an album length song but unlike its predecessor was mainly a dark album with some humor (or as the British call it "light and shade") throughout.
The album was the jazziest in musical terms that Tull had recorded up until 1973. The piece was more of a jazzy hard rock than its predecessor. The album saw Ian Anderson utilize more saxophones to his arsenal of instruments (in addition to his usual flute and acoustic guitar and had used some saxophones on Thick as a Brick). Also, John Evan added more synthesizers to the mix. There are plenty of great musical and lyrical passages. The lyrics were some of the darkest Ian Anderson had written to date save for the song's middle section.
The section in particular is called The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles. This is hilarious, especially if you watch the accompanying film on the enhanced part of the CD and/or the concert footage. All I can think of when I hear this is a lost Looney Tunes cartoon with Monty Python-esque humor.
Then the rest of the piece is just as good, if not better, than the first half.
A Passion Play, like TAAB, hit #1 on the Billboard album chart. However, its success was short-lived as opposed to TAAB (and even Aqualung and successors War Child, Minstrel in the Gallery, Songs From the Wood and even Crest of a Knave) and was what led the way for punk to become the rage according to rock critics in the mid-1970s (although punk would not hit commercial popularity here in the US until the 1990s, long after critics raved about it).
In 2003, the album was re-released as a remastered CD and sounds excellent.
RECOMMENDED!