Jethro Tull - Mother England Reverie lyrics

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!)