Far Alaska

Album: J-Tull Dot Com (1999)
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Songfacts®:

  • Written by lead singer Ian Anderson, "Far Alaska" is a travelogue of sorts, imagining a journey to far-off lands from Rio to Alaska. This trip takes place in his mind, but he encourages us to head for adventure, "Pick a place or stick a pin in." The Norwegian fjords in the summer are wonderful.
  • Musically, this song embraces sounds from various cultures. The J-Tull Dot Com integrates world music, which is in line with this song's lyrics.

    The album ended up being the last non-Christmas studio effort from the band, although Ian Anderson released a solo album the following year called The Secret Language of Birds.

    As for the album title, the internet was all the rage at the time as many people were gaining access. There was a mad rush to claim domain names, and because search engines were unreliable, most users typed in the URL to get to a site. Website owners did everything they could to direct users to the specific domains, lest they end up at an imposter. Jethro Tull took this to the extreme by naming their album after their domain name, j-tull.com. That domain has since been abandoned - they are now at jethrotull.com.

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