Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull performing “Aqualung” live in concert. Ian is a cut-up on stage, and Martin Barre shows he has some chops as a guitar player. Check out the crazy lighting!
A song about an indigent soul has made a rock legend. In fact the singer (who’s FIRST wife who wrote the song) felt he had to instill even more meaning to it’s simple theme of “a bum who dies” by portraying himself, Ian Anderson.”A powerful image of the poor destitute homeless man woven throughout many of the bands commercial offerings. But you see, his FIRST wife made the song work to the teenage adolescent types with “snot is running down his nose, greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes…” At that time, snot was as bad as Slip Knot today.
Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck
Sun streaking cold on an old man wondering lonely
Taking time the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad, as he bends to pick a dog-end
He goes down to the bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army’s up the road
Salvation a la mode, and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don’t you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see, it’s only me
Do you still remember December’s foggy freeze?
When the ice that clings on to your beard is screaming agony
And you snatch your rattling last breaths with deep-sea-diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like madness in the spring
Aqualung, my friend, don’t you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see, it’s only me
Sitting on a park bench
Eyeing little girls with bad intent
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck