Interpret:

Jethro Tull

Album:

Warchild

Over the mountains, and under the sky --- 
riding dirty gray horses, go you and I. 
Mating with chance, copulating with mirth --- 
the sad-glad paymasters (for what it's worth). 


The ice-cream castles are refrigerated; 
the super-marketeers are on parade. 
There's a golden handshake hanging round your neck, 
as you light your cigarette on the burning deck. 


And you balance your world on the tip of your nose --- 
like a SeaLion with a ball, at the carnival. 
You wear a shiny skin and a funny hat --- 
the Almighty Animal Trainer lets it go at that. 


You bark ever-so-slightly at the Trainer's gun, 
with you whiskers melting in the noon-day sun. 
You flip and you flop under the Big White Top 
where the long-legged ring-mistress starts and stops. 


But you know, after all, the act is wearing thin --- 
as the crowd grows uneasy and the boos begin. 
But you balance your world on the tip of your nose --- 
you're a SeaLion with a ball at the carnival. 


Just a trace of pride upon our fixed grins --- 
for there is no business like the show we're in. 
There is no reason, no rhyme, no right 
to leave the circus `til we've said good-night. 


The same performance, in the same old way; 
it's the same old story to this Passion Play. 
So we'll shoot the moon, and hope to call the tune --- 
and make no pin cushion of this big balloon. 


Look how we balance the world on the tips of our noses, 
like SeaLions with a ball at the carnival.