Jethro Tull

[fox69]

"Astronomy"

"Astronomy"



The middle lane has trapped my car
in red-light claustrophobia.
I slip the shackles, cut the rope ---
stand naked with a telescope
as the cat walks alone
under a big sky.
Against the dark so thin and white ---
gonna be a big sky night.

Miss Galileo, come with me
and view the new Astronomy.
Black hole dressing on salad plate ---
quasar at the kissing gate.
Now the cat, he walks alone
under a big sky.
Umbrella dome pin-pricked in lights ---
gonna be a big sky night.

My spectacles, my white lab coat ---
my coffee, thermos and my notes.
I pat my pockets. I got the keys
to the secrets of the observatory.
And closing the door,
I feel a new dawn
as the darker slides align ---
you to yours and me to mine.

And now you stand, assisting me ---
I can touch what I can see, see, see.
I look in wonder, I feel no shame ---
see the consequences of the game.
Expand the universe.
Head for the Big Bang.
Reach for my switch and shout ---
gonna turn the big sky out.

There's got to be astronomy.
Astronomy.

 

[fox69]

"At Last, Forever"

"At Last, Forever"



So why are you holding my hand tonight?
I'm not intending to go far away.
I'm just slipping through to the back room --
I'll leave you messages almost every day.
And who was I to last forever?
I didn't promise to stay the pace.
Not in this lifetime, babe
but we'll cling together:
some kind of heaven written in your face.

So why are you holding my hand tonight?
Well, am I feeling so cold to the touch?
Do my eyes seem to focus
on some distant point?
Why do I find it hard to talk too much?
And who was I to last forever?
I didn't promise to stay the pace.
Not in this lifetime, babe
but we'll cling together:
some kind of heaven written in your face.

So why are you holding my hand tonight?
I'm not intending to go far away.
I'm just slipping through to the back room --
I'll leave you messages almost every day.
And who was I to last forever?
I didn't promise to stay the pace.
Not in this lifetime, babe
but we'll cling together:
some kind of heaven written in your face.

 

[fox69]

"Audition"

"Audition"



The actors milling helplessly--
The script is blowing out to sea.
But what the hell, we didn't even pass an audition.

The lines you'll have to improvise.
The words are written in the eyes
Of politicians who despise their fathers.

And so the play necessitates
That all you boys participate
In fierce competition to eliminate each other.

And groupies, on their way to war,
Get to write the next film score,
But the rock and roll star knows his glory is really nothing.

Men of religion, on the make,
Pledge an oath they undertake
To make you wise for God's own sake, and none other.

While ladies get their bedding done
To win themselves a bouncing son--
But bad girls do it for the fun of just being.

And me, I'm here to sing along,
And I'm not concerned with righting wrongs,
Just asking questions that belong without an answer.

But God is laughing up his sleeve
As He pours himself another cup of tea,
And He waves good-bye to you and me, at least for now.

 

[fox69]

"Automotive Engineering"

"Automotive Engineering"



In the hands of science ---
the complete appliance.
We're moved to motor.
Do you fly a Spitfire?
Do you slide on a tea-tray?
Or walk on a short trip (Sundays).
Or drive come what may (enjoy).

Automotive science and engineering.

When big was better ---
and fast was chic,
the oil was cheaper ---
now we're up the creek.
But the Japs are coming
and everyone's turbo'd
and carbon fibre
is the way to go, go.

Down at the robot factory
things are humming.
New radical suspension ---
no humans testing.
(Wind it up, wind it up.)
Take a trip
in your Freudian slip.
Doctor Ferdinand (Ferdie)
has you in his grip.

 

[fox69]

"AWOL"

"AWOL"



Stormy-eyed on the edge of dawn...
nose pressed against the triple glaze.
Floor to ceiling, wall to wall,
silent traffic streams both ways.
Along the fussy freeway drivers
dream of Sunday barbecues.
Of a sudden, seems I can barely
face my self... no face to lose.
Call the bosses. Call supervisors.
Won't be in today to work for you.

E-mail that girl who's working nights.
She can dress down for this wind and rain.
Leave her new Korean compact...
let some cabbie take the strain.
Take a shower. Take big espresso.
Take to the hills, and take a view.
Little black dress stretching over
hard crystal peaks; soft valleys too.
Call the bosses. Call for nurses.
Unfit today to work for you.

No wet excuses. Absent without leave.
I'll be her dayshift driver... exotic engineer.

Stormy-eyed on the edge of night...
(December, Eastern time... late afternoon.)
Atlantic City tight behind.
Trump Casino calls pontoon.
Gristle-burger, frazzled fries
end this romantic interlude.
Tomorrow morning's sweet awakening
could hardly prove to be as rude.
Make the journey. Make amends.
Work some hasty overtime in lieu.

No wet excuses. Absent With-Out leave.
I was her dayshift driver... exotic engineer.

 

[fox69]

"Back To The Family"

"Back To The Family"



My telephone wakes me in the morning --
have to get up to answer the call.
So I think I'll go back to the family
where no one can ring me at all.
Living this life has its problems
so I think that I'll give it a break.
Oh, I'm going back to the family
`cos I've had about all I can take.

Master's in the counting house
counting all his money.
Sister's sitting by the mirror --
she thinks her hair looks funny.
And here am I thinking to myself
just wond'ring what things to do.

I think I enjoyed all my problems
Where I did not get nothing for free.
Oh, I'm going back to the family --
doing nothing is bothering me.
I'll get a train back to the city
that soft life is getting me down.
There's more fun away from the family
get some action when I pull into town.

Everything I do is wrong,
what the hell was I thinking?
Phone keeps ringing all day long
I got no time for thinking.
And every day has the same old way
of giving me too much to do.

 

[fox69]

"Back-Door Angels"

"Back-Door Angels"



In and out of the front door, ran twelve back-door angels.
Their hair was a golden-brown ---
they didn't see me wink my eye.
`Tis said they put we men to sleep with just a whisper,
And touch the heads of dying dogs --- and make them linger.
They carry their candles high --- and they light the dark hours.
And sweep all the country clean with pressed and scented wild-flowers.
They grow all their roses red, and paint our skies blue ---
drop one penny in every second bowl ---
make half the beggars lose,
why do the faithful have such a will to believe in something?
And call it the name they choose,
having chosen nothing.
Think I'll sit down and invent some fool ---
some Grand Court Jester.
And next time the die is cast, he'll throw a six or two.
In and out of the back-door, ran one front-door angel,
Her hair was a golden-brown ---
she smiled and I think she winked her eye.

 

[fox69]

"Bad-Eyed And Loveless"

"Bad-Eyed And Loveless"




Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
A young man's fancy and an old man's dream.
I'm self raising and I flower in her company.
Give me no sugar without her cream.

She's a warm fart at Christmas.
She's a breath of champagne on sparkling night.
Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
Turns other women to envious green.
Yes'n she's bad-eyed and she's loveless.
She's a young man's vision --- in my old man's dream.

 

[fox69]

"Baker Street Muse"

"Baker Street Muse"




[Baker Street Muse]

Windy bus-stop. Click. Shop-window. Heel.
Shady gentleman. Fly-button. Feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time.
You can call me on another line.
Indian restaurants that curry my brain.
Newspaper warriors changing the names they advertise from the station stand.
With cold print hands.
Symphony word-player, I'll be your headline.
If you catch me another time.

Didn't make her
with my Baker Street Ruse.
Couldn't shake her
with my Baker Street Bruise.
Like to take her
but I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

Ale-spew, puddle-brew
boys, throw it up clean.
Coke and Bacardi colours them green.
From the typing pool goes the mini-skirted princess with great finesse.
Fertile earth-mother, your burial mound is fifty feet down in the Baker Street underground. (What the hell!)
Walking down the gutter thinking,
"How the hell am I today?"
Well, I didn't really ask you but thanks all the same.

[Pygmy And The Whore]

"Big bottled Fraulein, put your weight on me," said the Pygmy And The Whore,
desperate for more in his assault upon the mountain.
Little man, his youth a fountain.
Overdrafted and still counting.
Vernacular, verbose; an attempt at getting close to where he came from.
In the doorway of the stars, between Blandford Street and Mars;
Proposition, deal. Flying button feel. Testicle testing.
Wallet ever-bulging. Dressed to the left, divulging the wrinkles of his years.
Wedding-bell induced fears.
Shedding bell-end tears in the pocket of her resistance.
International assistance flowing generous and full to his never-ready tool.
Pulls his eyes over her wool.
And he shudders as he comes.
And my rudder slowly turns me into the Marylebone Road.

[Crash-Barrier Waltzer]

And here slip I
dragging one foot in the gutter
in the midnight echo of the shop that sells cheap radios.
And there sits she
no bed, no bread, no butter
on a double yellow line
where she can park anytime.
Old Lady Grey; crash-barrier waltzer
some only son's mother. Baker Street casualty.
Oh, Mr. Policeman
blue shirt ballet master.
Feet in sticking plaster
move the old lady on.
Strange pas-de-deux
his Romeo to her Juliet.
Her sleeping draught, his poisoned regret.
No drunken bums allowed to sleep here in the crowded emptiness.
Oh officer, let me send her to a cheap hotel
I'll pay the bill and make her well - like hell you bloody will!
No do-good over kill. We must teach them to be still more independent.

[Mother England Reverie]

I have no time for Time Magazine or Rolling Stone.
I have no wish for wishing wells or wishing bones.
I have no house in the country I have no motor car.
And if you think I'm joking, then I'm just a one-line joker in a public bar.
And it seems there's no-body left for tennis; and I'm a one-band-man.
And I want no Top Twenty funeral or a hundred grand.
There was a little boy stood on a burning log,
rubbing his hands with glee. He said, "Oh Mother England,
did you light my smile; or did you light this fire under me?
One day I'll be a minstrel in the gallery.
And paint you a picture of the queen.
And if sometimes I sing to a cynical degree
it's just the nonsense that it seems."

So I drift down through the Baker Street valley,
in my steep-sided un-reality.
And when all is said and all is done
I couldn't wish for a better one.
It's a real-life ripe dead certainty
that I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

Talking to the gutter-stinking, winking in the same old way.
I tried to catch my eye but I looked the other way.

Indian restaurants that curry my brain
newspaper warriors changing the names they advertise from the station stand.
Circumcised with cold print hands.

Windy bus-stop. Click. Shop-window. Heel.
Shady gentleman. Fly-button. Feel.
In the underpass, the blind man stands.
With cold flute hands.
Symphony match-seller, breath out of time
you can call me on another line.

Didn't make her
with my Baker Street Ruse.
Couldn't shake her
with my Baker Street Bruise.
Like to take her
but I'm just a Baker Street Muse.

(I can't get out!)

 

[fox69]

"Batteries Not Included"

"Batteries Not Included"



Six o'clock in the morning
Wake up by the bed
There sits a Japanese toy
And I like it
See the name on the wrapping
Can't read yet but I know
it's made for me (lucky boy)
And I want it
Lights that flash, wheels that go round
Digital display
Fresh silicon chips to enjoy
And I need them
(Where's the batteries?)
Sitting silent and empty
Wish I could breathe life
in my new friend who's terribly still
And I like him
Just like me. P'rhaps he's hungry.
Six volts make him smile
And twelve volts would probably kill
How I like him
Daddy, where's the batteries
I can't find my batteries
(There's no batteries)
Seven o'clock in the morning
They find me by the bed
with my friend the Japanese toy
I am with him
Mummy, Daddy --- can't see you,
hear you. Batteries not
included in this little boy
(Where's my batteries?)