Teacher

This song tells the story of a socially awkward fellow who buys plane ticket for a more jovial chap (the "teacher") so they can go on vacation together. On the trip, the freeloader ends up having all the fun while the narrator remains as neurotic as ever. It's an odd storyline for a Jethro Tull song, but it's also one of just a few songs that Ian Anderson wrote strictly for mass appeal. When we asked Anderson if there was a specific inspiration for the song, he replied: "Only in as much as it was the need to come up with a pop song format that might get us some radio play or be in the singles charts. It was a deliberate attempt to write a piece of more generic pop/rock music. Which is probably why I don't really like it very much. It just seemed a bit forced, a bit too structured in that kind of vein. So it's not one that I'm comfortable with at all, no."