Interpret:

Jethro Tull

Album:

Minstrel In The Gallery

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!)