Editing Heavy Horses (section)

==Musical style and themes==
While continuing the folk rock style of ''Songs From the Wood'', ''Heavy Horses'' sees a tonal shift into more earthly and realist themes of country living, compared with the fantasy and mythology of the previous album. Anderson was again inspired by daily life at his recently purchased country estate in [[Buckinghamshire]], saying that "I was living in the same house in the same place, and getting a bit more involved in farming and other rural stuff... so the horse-hoeing husbandry of the original [[Jethro Tull (agriculturist)|Jethro Tull]] era was in the back of my mind."<ref name="NewShoesEdition" /> Several of the album's songs were directly inspired by Anderson's personal life at the estate: "...And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps" was partially inspired by his cat Mistletoe, "No Lullaby" was written as an "anti-lullaby" for his son and "Rover" was partially inspired by his dog Lupus. Other songs on the album such as "Weathercock" and the title track paint a cold and practical picture of country living, with the latter track described by Anderson as "a lament for the passing as working animals of those magnificent beasts, the heavy farm horses."<ref name="NewShoesEdition" /> Other track's lyrics were inspired by literature, such as "One Brown Mouse" inspired by the [[Robert Burns]] poem "[[To a Mouse]]" and "Moths" inspired by the [[John le Carré]] novel ''[[The Naïve and Sentimental Lover]]''.<ref name="NewShoesEdition" />

Anderson stated that the recording of the album came at a time when other artists were moving towards the new trends in music, and the band decided they did not want "to appear as if we were trying to slip into the [[post-punk]] coattails that were worn by [[The Stranglers]] or [[The Police]]."<ref name="ClassicRock.TeamRock.com" />