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Unnur Birna Is A Reykjavik-based Violinist And Singer. She Has Performed As A Session Musician With Countless Icelandic And International Artists While Recording And Appearing As A Solo Artist As Well. Unnur Has Joined Me As An Unpaid Guest On A Few Icelandic Shows In Recent Years, So It Is A Great Pleasure To Return The Favour And Appear On One Of Her Songs At Last. This New Track, Sunshine, Came About In Italy, Written As An Ode To Sunlight And Happiness After Fleeing The Dark Winter In Iceland

-Ian Anderson

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Unnur Birna Is A

Ian Anderson

...

Unnur Birna Is A Reykjavik-based Violinist And Singer. She Has Performed As A Session Musician With Countless Icelandic And International Artists While Recording And Appearing As A Solo Artist As Well. Unnur Has Joined Me As An Unpaid Guest On A Few Icelandic Shows In Recent Years, So It Is A Great Pleasure To Return The Favour And Appear On One Of Her Songs At Last. This New Track, Sunshine, Came About In Italy, Written As An Ode To Sunlight And Happiness After Fleeing The Dark Winter In Iceland

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More From Ian Anderson

I Don't Think Successful Musicians Were Really Put On This Planet In Order To Have A Great Time, Pat Themselves On The Back And Say, 'oh, What A Clever Boy I Am!' I Think That, Like Most Artists, We Were Put On The Planet To Suffer Just A Little. And We Do.

Question All As To Their Ways And Learn The Secrets That They Hold

A Lot Of Pop Music Is About Stealing Pocket Money From Children.

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.

Bring Me A Wheel Of Oaken Wood A Rein Of Polished Leather A Heavy Horse And A Tumbling Sky Brewing Heavy Weather.

Classical Music Only Really Came Into My Life In 1969. I Wish I Had Heard Classical Music And Church Music When I Was A Teenager Or Even As A Child.

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Traditionally Has Had A Management Style That Is Very Supportive Of American Talent, First And Foremost, Over Everything Else. And I Think That's Right And Proper.

I'm All In Favor Of Banks That Play Their Part In Community Endeavors, Private Individuals Looking For Loans, People Who Want To Start Up A Little Business, And That's What Banks Are For.

Our Politicians May Fail Us, But Status Quo Always Delivers On The Promise.

Challenging The Status Quo

I Don't Think People Really Do Listen. We Plug Into Music, And We Have Short Attention Spans. We Tend To Download Individual Tracks From Itunes Rather Than A Whole Album. We Buy Music Dvds And Watch Them Once, And Then They Disappear Into A Drawer, Or We Loan Them To A Friend, And We Never Watch It Again.

Martin, Dave, And I Get Together And Rough Out A Few Songs And Put Them On Cassettes For Some Reference...with The Actual Music, I'm Not Interested In Objectivity, Quite The Opposite. I Want A Solely And Totally Subjective Experience...a Lot Of Pop Music Is About Stealing Pocket Money From Children.

Just Once I Would Like To Persuade The Audience Not To Wear Any Article Of Blue Denim. If Only They Could See Themselves In A Pair Of Brown Corduroys Like Mine Instead Of This Awful, Boring Blue Denim.

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.

Touring Is What You Make It. I Like To Organise As Much As Possible Myself.

Not To Be Mean About It, But Some Great Rock And Rollers, Like Bo Diddley And Chuck Berry, Are Pretty One-dimensional.

There Seems To Be An Inclination Among Rock Musicians To Be Very Carefree With Money, But I Negotiate The Best Flight And Hotel Deals On Our Tours To Maximise The Band's Income - I Don't Want Too See Too Much Taken Off The Top Line.

I Suppose When I Started Playing Guitar, It Was The Means To An End. I Never Thought Of Myself As A Fully Fledged Guitar Instrumentalist. And My Early Excursions On The Electric Guitar Were Curtailed When Eric Clapton Came On The Scene, And I Decided I Was Never Going To Be In The Same Arena As A Clapton Or A Peter Green.

I Kind Of Like The Idea Of Living A Rather Ordinary Life As A Shopkeeper, And I Examine That Possibility As One Of The Outcomes Of The Young Gerald Bostock Growing Older.

I Suppose When I Started Playing Guitar, It Was The Means To An End. I Never Thought Of Myself As A Fully Fledged Guitar Instrumentalist. And My Early Excursions On The Electric Guitar Were Curtailed When Eric Clapton Came On The Scene, And I Decided I Was Never Going To Be In The Same Arena As A Clapton Or A Peter Green.

I Think I've Owned All The Models Of Ipods So Far. And These Days Between My Ipod, Iphone And My Personal Laptop Computer, I'm Someone Who Is Very, Very Grateful For All The Ways To Listen To Music And Completely Switch Off From People Around Me And Listen To The Music In Detail, Which Is Very Hard To Do If You're In A Room With Other People.

All The Time I Was Playing The Flute, The Lines, The Solos, The Riffs, The Construction, Were Based On My Guitar Skills. I Did Not Play The Flute To Exploit Its Natural Faculties, But I Used It As A Surrogate Guitar.

When I Was A Young Boy, I Preferred Cats To Dogs. From The Age Of Seven Or Eight Onwards I Just Felt More Comfortable With Cats. And I Felt More Comfortable With Girls, I Didn't Really Like Hanging Out With Guys. When I Was About Ten Or Eleven, I Was Friendlier With The Girls In My School Than With The Guys.

It's Nice To Be Recognized, But It's Not Great To Have It Too Conspicuously Recognized, If You See What I Mean. Gold Records On The Wall, Or Titles After Your Name, It's Just Not Something... I Don't Feel That Great About It.

Oh Father High In Heaven - Smile Down Upon Your Sonwho's Busy With His Money Games - His Women And His Gun.

Come With Me To The Winged Isle- Northern Father's Western Child Where The Dance Of Ages Is Playing Still Through Far Marches Of Acres Wild.

I Don't Think Successful Musicians Were Really Put On This Planet In Order To Have A Great Time, Pat Themselves On The Back And Say, 'oh, What A Clever Boy I Am!' I Think That, Like Most Artists, We Were Put On The Planet To Suffer Just A Little. And We Do.

We Do Hear Perhaps Too Many Accolades Generally Aimed At People Like Steve Jobs. We Have To Remember That There Are Other Classic Things In Life That We Undervalue And Take Them For Granted. If You Think Of The Classic Lines Of The Modern Jet Aircraft, It's Really Been There Since Early World War Ii.

It Was Instilled In Me That The Money I Was Given Was Not To Be Lost Or Spent On Any Other Purpose.

I'm All In Favor Of Banks That Play Their Part In Community Endeavors, Private Individuals Looking For Loans, People Who Want To Start Up A Little Business, And That's What Banks Are For.

I Think It's Really The Job Of The Composer, The Artist, The Painter, The Writer To Present People With Options. I'm Just Really Reflecting The Thoughts And Actions Around Me.

I Was Quite Keen On Silviculture, The Growing Of Trees, And That Was Something I Gave A Lot Of Thought To. Maybe I Could've Gone In That Direction. But It Just So Happened That While I Was Trying To Make Up My Mind, I Enrolled In Art School, And There I Began To Develop My Interest In Music, Parallel With My Interest In The Visual Arts.

I'm Not One For Sudoku Or Crosswords - The Thing That Fires My Little Brain Is Doing Tour Budgets.

Another Tea-time, Another Day Older.

As A Musician, Life Is Not Over Just Because You Are Getting Older, And So I Find Retirement A Very Frightening And Dark Thought.

Our Politicians May Fail Us, But Status Quo Always Delivers On The Promise.

Challenging The Status Quo

But The Tune Ends Too Soon For Us All

It's Only The Giving That Makes You What You Are.

I Think I've Owned All The Models Of Ipods So Far. And These Days Between My Ipod, Iphone And My Personal Laptop Computer, I'm Someone Who Is Very, Very Grateful For All The Ways To Listen To Music And Completely Switch Off From People Around Me And Listen To The Music In Detail, Which Is Very Hard To Do If You're In A Room With Other People.

I've Always Been Fond Of Acoustic Music.

Walk The Lines Of Nature's Palm Crossed With Silver And With Gold.

I Was Quite Keen On Silviculture, The Growing Of Trees, And That Was Something I Gave A Lot Of Thought To. Maybe I Could've Gone In That Direction. But It Just So Happened That While I Was Trying To Make Up My Mind, I Enrolled In Art School, And There I Began To Develop My Interest In Music, Parallel With My Interest In The Visual Arts.

Question All As To Their Ways And Learn The Secrets That They Hold

Seek That Which Within Lies Waiting To Begin The Fight Of Your Life That Is Everyday.

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.

The Flute Was An Alternative To Being A Small Fish In An Increasingly Bigger Pool Filled With A Number Of Great Guitar Players.

I Was Not A Great Guitarist, So I Sold My 1960 Fender Stratocaster In Exchange For A Shure Microphone, Made In Chicago, And A Flute.

Cafe Society Is As Old As The Hills. Starbucks And Its Imitators Are The Coffee Face Of The New Man In A Hurry.

Touring Is What You Make It. I Like To Organise As Much As Possible Myself.

I'm Really Terrible With Small Children; They're Small, Noisy, Irritating, Damp And Soggy.

Why Do The Faithful Have Such A Will, To Believe In Something? And Call In The Name They Choose, Having Chosen Nothing.

Not To Be Mean About It, But Some Great Rock And Rollers, Like Bo Diddley And Chuck Berry, Are Pretty One-dimensional.

Come With Me To The Winged Isle- Northern Father's Western Child Where The Dance Of Ages Is Playing Still Through Far Marches Of Acres Wild.

Oh Father High In Heaven - Smile Down Upon Your Sonwho's Busy With His Money Games - His Women And His Gun.

I Was Not A Great Guitarist, So I Sold My 1960 Fender Stratocaster In Exchange For A Shure Microphone, Made In Chicago, And A Flute.

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.

Unnur Birna Is A Reykjavik-based Violinist And Singer. She Has Performed As A Session Musician With Countless Icelandic And International Artists While Recording And Appearing As A Solo Artist As Well. Unnur Has Joined Me As An Unpaid Guest On A Few Icelandic Shows In Recent Years, So It Is A Great Pleasure To Return The Favour And Appear On One Of Her Songs At Last. This New Track, Sunshine, Came About In Italy, Written As An Ode To Sunlight And Happiness After Fleeing The Dark Winter In Iceland

Seek That Which Within Lies Waiting To Begin The Fight Of Your Life That Is Everyday.

I Am Not Afraid To Appear In Israel, Although When I Come To A Place Like Israel, I Know It's Not A Picnic By The Thames. I Am Aware Of The Tension And It Saddens Me.

I Kind Of Like The Idea Of Living A Rather Ordinary Life As A Shopkeeper, And I Examine That Possibility As One Of The Outcomes Of The Young Gerald Bostock Growing Older.

When I Was A Young Boy, I Preferred Cats To Dogs. From The Age Of Seven Or Eight Onwards I Just Felt More Comfortable With Cats. And I Felt More Comfortable With Girls, I Didn't Really Like Hanging Out With Guys. When I Was About Ten Or Eleven, I Was Friendlier With The Girls In My School Than With The Guys.

I'm Really Terrible With Small Children; They're Small, Noisy, Irritating, Damp And Soggy.

It's Nice To Be Recognized, But It's Not Great To Have It Too Conspicuously Recognized, If You See What I Mean. Gold Records On The Wall, Or Titles After Your Name, It's Just Not Something... I Don't Feel That Great About It.

Cafe Society Is As Old As The Hills. Starbucks And Its Imitators Are The Coffee Face Of The New Man In A Hurry.

Why Do The Faithful Have Such A Will, To Believe In Something? And Call In The Name They Choose, Having Chosen Nothing.

The Original Jethro Tull Was A 19th Century English Agriculturist Who Invented A Seed Drill You See. The First Automatic Process Where By Small Holes Were Made In Mother Earth And Even Smaller Seeds Were Deposited One At A Time And Neatly Covered Over As A Cat Does After Having Being Naughty.

As A Songwriter, You Tend To Develop Your Own Style, Your Own Technique, Based Around What It Is You're Trying To Write And Perform, In Terms Of Your Own Music. So A Way Of Evolving A Guitar Style As A Songwriter Is Much Easier, I Think, Than Developing A True Style Of Your Own Just From Listening To Music Or Playing Other People's Music.

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.

As A Songwriter, You Tend To Develop Your Own Style, Your Own Technique, Based Around What It Is You're Trying To Write And Perform, In Terms Of Your Own Music. So A Way Of Evolving A Guitar Style As A Songwriter Is Much Easier, I Think, Than Developing A True Style Of Your Own Just From Listening To Music Or Playing Other People's Music.

There Seems To Be An Inclination Among Rock Musicians To Be Very Carefree With Money, But I Negotiate The Best Flight And Hotel Deals On Our Tours To Maximise The Band's Income - I Don't Want Too See Too Much Taken Off The Top Line.

Another Tea-time, Another Day Older.

I've Always Been Fond Of Acoustic Music.

I Make Up My Own Mind In Light Of Available Facts, With My Own Experience And A Sense Of Personal Ethics.

I'm Not One For Sudoku Or Crosswords - The Thing That Fires My Little Brain Is Doing Tour Budgets.

It Was Instilled In Me That The Money I Was Given Was Not To Be Lost Or Spent On Any Other Purpose.

When I Was A Teenager, I Really Didn't Like Loud Rock Music. I Listened To Jazz And Blues And Folk Music. I've Always Preferred Acoustic Music. And It Was Only, I Suppose, By The Time Jethro Tull Was Getting Underway That We Did Let The Music Begin To Have A Harder Edge, In Particular With The Electric Guitar Being Alongside The Flute.

I Make Up My Own Mind In Light Of Available Facts, With My Own Experience And A Sense Of Personal Ethics.

It Might Work With One Orchestra, And The Next Orchestra - The Oboe Player Might Not Get It. It's Different Every Time, But Some Of The Orchestras Do End Up Enjoying It And Having A Great Time.

Bring Me A Wheel Of Oaken Wood A Rein Of Polished Leather A Heavy Horse And A Tumbling Sky Brewing Heavy Weather.

I Am Not Afraid To Appear In Israel, Although When I Come To A Place Like Israel, I Know It's Not A Picnic By The Thames. I Am Aware Of The Tension And It Saddens Me.

Classical Music Only Really Came Into My Life In 1969. I Wish I Had Heard Classical Music And Church Music When I Was A Teenager Or Even As A Child.

The Flute Was An Alternative To Being A Small Fish In An Increasingly Bigger Pool Filled With A Number Of Great Guitar Players.

But The Tune Ends Too Soon For Us All

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Traditionally Has Had A Management Style That Is Very Supportive Of American Talent, First And Foremost, Over Everything Else. And I Think That's Right And Proper.

There's Always Going To Be A Little Bit Of Autobiographical Content To Everything. It's How You Lend Some Authority To What You Write - You Give It That Weight By Drawing On Your Direct Experiences And Indirect Experiences From People That You Know Well, Or A Little.

It's Only The Giving That Makes You What You Are.

The Original Jethro Tull Was A 19th Century English Agriculturist Who Invented A Seed Drill You See. The First Automatic Process Where By Small Holes Were Made In Mother Earth And Even Smaller Seeds Were Deposited One At A Time And Neatly Covered Over As A Cat Does After Having Being Naughty.

Walk The Lines Of Nature's Palm Crossed With Silver And With Gold.

It Might Work With One Orchestra, And The Next Orchestra - The Oboe Player Might Not Get It. It's Different Every Time, But Some Of The Orchestras Do End Up Enjoying It And Having A Great Time.

I Can Never Make Up My Mind If I'm Happy Being A Flute Player, Or If I Wish I Were Eric Clapton.

As A Musician, Life Is Not Over Just Because You Are Getting Older, And So I Find Retirement A Very Frightening And Dark Thought.

I Don't Think People Really Do Listen. We Plug Into Music, And We Have Short Attention Spans. We Tend To Download Individual Tracks From Itunes Rather Than A Whole Album. We Buy Music Dvds And Watch Them Once, And Then They Disappear Into A Drawer, Or We Loan Them To A Friend, And We Never Watch It Again.

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.

Martin, Dave, And I Get Together And Rough Out A Few Songs And Put Them On Cassettes For Some Reference...with The Actual Music, I'm Not Interested In Objectivity, Quite The Opposite. I Want A Solely And Totally Subjective Experience...a Lot Of Pop Music Is About Stealing Pocket Money From Children.

Unnur Birna Is A Reykjavik-based Violinist And Singer. She Has Performed As A Session Musician With Countless Icelandic And International Artists While Recording And Appearing As A Solo Artist As Well. Unnur Has Joined Me As An Unpaid Guest On A Few Icelandic Shows In Recent Years, So It Is A Great Pleasure To Return The Favour And Appear On One Of Her Songs At Last. This New Track, Sunshine, Came About In Italy, Written As An Ode To Sunlight And Happiness After Fleeing The Dark Winter In Iceland

There's Always Going To Be A Little Bit Of Autobiographical Content To Everything. It's How You Lend Some Authority To What You Write - You Give It That Weight By Drawing On Your Direct Experiences And Indirect Experiences From People That You Know Well, Or A Little.

I'm Very Much An Observer And A Conduit Of Thoughts And Ideas.

Thoughts And Ideas

A Lot Of Pop Music Is About Stealing Pocket Money From Children.

When I Was A Teenager, I Really Didn't Like Loud Rock Music. I Listened To Jazz And Blues And Folk Music. I've Always Preferred Acoustic Music. And It Was Only, I Suppose, By The Time Jethro Tull Was Getting Underway That We Did Let The Music Begin To Have A Harder Edge, In Particular With The Electric Guitar Being Alongside The Flute.

If Jesus Christ Came Back Today, He And I Would Get Into Our Brown Corduroys And Go To The Nearest Jean Store And Overturn The Racks Of Blue Denim.

All The Time I Was Playing The Flute, The Lines, The Solos, The Riffs, The Construction, Were Based On My Guitar Skills. I Did Not Play The Flute To Exploit Its Natural Faculties, But I Used It As A Surrogate Guitar.

I'm Very Much An Observer And A Conduit Of Thoughts And Ideas.

Thoughts And Ideas

Just Once I Would Like To Persuade The Audience Not To Wear Any Article Of Blue Denim. If Only They Could See Themselves In A Pair Of Brown Corduroys Like Mine Instead Of This Awful, Boring Blue Denim.

I Think It's Really The Job Of The Composer, The Artist, The Painter, The Writer To Present People With Options. I'm Just Really Reflecting The Thoughts And Actions Around Me.

I Can Never Make Up My Mind If I'm Happy Being A Flute Player, Or If I Wish I Were Eric Clapton.

We Do Hear Perhaps Too Many Accolades Generally Aimed At People Like Steve Jobs. We Have To Remember That There Are Other Classic Things In Life That We Undervalue And Take Them For Granted. If You Think Of The Classic Lines Of The Modern Jet Aircraft, It's Really Been There Since Early World War Ii.

If Jesus Christ Came Back Today, He And I Would Get Into Our Brown Corduroys And Go To The Nearest Jean Store And Overturn The Racks Of Blue Denim.

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