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Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Sitting on a park bench
Eyeing idle girls with bad intent.
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
Aqualung my friend, don't you start away uneasy
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run.
Aqualung my friend
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck.
Aqualung my friend, don't you start away uneasy.
Sun streaking cold
An old man wandering 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 start away uneasy
You poor old sot, you see, it's only me.
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze?
When the ice that
Clings on to your beard was
Screaming agony.
And you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea-diver sounds,
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring.
Sun streaming cold,
An old man wandering 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
Ohohoho
Feeling alone
The army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and
A cup of tea.
Aqualung my friend
Don't start away uneasy
You poor old sot, you see, it's only me.
"Aqualung" is a song by English progressive rock band Jethro Tull, featured as the first track on their 1971 album Aqualung, and written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson, and his then-wife, Jennie Franks. The original recording runs for 6 minutes and 32 seconds. Like many of Jethro Tull's songs, "Aqualung" tells a story —in this case, the story of a homeless man. The opening lyrics are "Sitting on a park bench / Eyeing little girls with bad intent". The song is the title track from Jethro Tull's first U.S. Top 10 album, which reached #7 in June of 1971. In an interview with Ian Anderson in the September 1999 Guitar World he said: Aqualung wasn't a concept album, although a lot of people thought so. The idea came about from a photograph my wife at the time took of a tramp in London. I had feelings of guilt about the homeless, as well as fear and insecurity with people like that who seem a little scary. And I suppose all of that was combined with a slightly romanticized picture of the person who is homeless but yet a free spirit, who either won't or can't join in society's prescribed formats. So from that photograph and those sentiments, I began writing the words to 'Aqualung.' I can remember sitting in a hotel room in L.A., working out the chord structure for the verses. It's quite a tortured tangle of chords, but it was meant to really drag you here and there and then set you down into the more gentle acoustic section of the song. Reportedly, Jimmy Page entered the studio, while Martin Barre was recording the guitar solo. It was during the first take, Martin didn't know Jimmy much, and was a little ashamed. Jimmy waved to Martin from the control room while he was playing, and Martin stopped playing for a short second, and waved with his right hand, while still sustaining the sound with the left hand. The solo on the record is actually this first take. Indeed, there is a short sustain with feedback during the solo. Anderson once joked that if you turn up the volume you can even hear Martin waving. The Aqualung character is later mentioned in "Cross-Eyed Mary", which follows this song on the album.
