An album with staying power. If you are enchanted with Celtic music, folklore and folk music, presented with panache and expert musicianship, you cannot go wrong with this album. Haunting and unforgettable, the lead singer and the musicians weave a spell that will take you deep into the mystical and naughty woods of yore. Spellbound, you will dance and sing among the trees, on velvet grass so green, and feel the presence of the fae just a reach away.

Songs from the Wood has to stand up as one of the best albums by anybody, and is surely one of Tull's best. The album offers one great song after the other. The bonus tracks are definately worth the price of admission. Once again the level of playing and production are top shelf. A very infectious album...the melodies and lyrics stay with you. Luckily I got to see Tull at Madison Square Garden during this era. To see and hear many of the songs played live was wonderful(as well as some songs from Heavy Horses). Any Tull fan who wrote a negative review for this album should revisit it. Many Jethro Tull albums improve with time like a fine wine! Cheers.

Bought this many years ago in the form of an LP. It was practically a life changing event.
Songs From the Wood is one of my top 5 favorite songs of all time. Yours is no Disgrace, Frankenstein, Riders on the Storm, and Third Stone From the Sun are other classics that rank about as highly. It is so complex, and so well done that it boggles the mind. The same joy of nature carries through the rest of the album with songs like Jack in the Green, Cup of Wonder, and Velvet Green. This version of "Ring Out Solstice Bells" is probably better than the one on the Christmas Album. The feel of the album is like celebrating in an old pub maybe in the late 18th century.
Jethro Tull is as unique and visionary a group as there ever was, and this is a landmark album for them. Ian Anderson is like some pied piper or a mythological pan leading you into different realms of the mind. Be careful, you might become addicted like me and buy all their other albums.

I've been listening to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull since I was a teenager, 40 years ago. I am amazed at his skill and control of the flute from which the most magical sounds emerge. Timeless celtic music that takes you into the woods to commune.

This 1977 release presents a fine mixture of harder edged progressive rock and early English folk music that the group has maintained to this very day. Overall, this is another of my favorites from Jethro Tull and presents the band firing on all cylinders; especially after the "not-so-well-received" album Too Old to Rock n' Roll, Too Young to Die (1976).

The players on Songs from the Wood include Ian Anderson (flute, acoustic guitar, mandolin, whistles, vocals, all instruments on Jack-in-the-Green), Martin Barre (electric guitar and lute), Barriemore Barlow (drums, marimba, glockenspiel, bells), John Glascock (bass, vocals), John Evans (piano, organ and synthesizers) and David Palmer (piano, portative organ and synthesizers). This is a great lineup and John Glascock and Barriemore Barlow are simply fantastic throughout.

The nine tracks on the album range in length from 2:27 to 8:38 and range from purely acoustic tracks heavily influenced by early English folk music, to more progressive pieces that feature great ensemble work, tasteful synthesizer and organ playing and (on occasion) hard-edged electric guitar playing by Martin. Although the heavier, proggier tracks like Hunting Girl are very satisfying, I especially appreciated the quieter, folksier pieces on the album. Overall, I found that the use of traditional folk instruments including the lute and mandolin along with the various and sundry bits of percussion added a rich, earthy texture to the music.

Like some other folks here, I have owned this album in one form or other for the past umpteen million years. This remastered album is something special though. The remastered CD features breathtaking sonic clarity, lyrics, photos and additional liner notes. However, although the bonus studio track Beltane is pleasant enough and I enjoyed the live version of Velvet Green, I was more than pleased with the tunes included on the original album.

All in all, this is a great album that presents some excellent material from one of my favorite periods in the career of this group. I did like this remastered CD and found that it was a suitable replacement for my (long gone) vinyl LP. For those folks that liked Songs from the Wood, the follow-up Heavy Horses (1978) is also pretty good and more or less maintains this approach. Highly recommended.