Jethro Tull's 1974 album "War Child" was originally conceived by frontman Ian Anderson not as a record, but as a dark comedy film about a teenager entering the afterlife, with comedian John Cleese enlisted to co-write the script. The revelation, which Anderson shared in a 2014 interview with Prog magazine, sheds light on why the album is often considered one of Tull's weaker and more disjointed efforts, having been adapted from an unrealised screenplay rather than built as a cohesive musical project from the outset.

Anderson had hoped the film would capture post-war British life with a tone closer to Monty Python's dark humour than mainstream comedy, and had attracted interest from other notable figures including actor Donald Pleasance, who was considered for the role of God, and former National Ballet director Frederick Ashton. However, no film studio was willing to finance the project, and Anderson recalled a particularly harsh meeting with acclaimed director Lindsay Anderson, who "tore the whole thing to shreds" and was, in the songwriter's words, "so nasty" about the work. With funding absent and confidence undermined, the film was abandoned and reworked into the studio album instead.