Jethro Tull- Baker Street Muse part 2

Baker Street Muse

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.

Indian restaurants that curry my brain.
Newspaper warriors changing the names they
advertise from the station stand.
With cold print hands.
Symphony word-player, I'll be your headline.
If you catch me another time.

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.

Ale-spew, puddle-brew --- boys, throw it up clean.
Coke and Bacardi colours them green.
From the typing pool goes the mini-skirted princess
with great finesse.
Fertile earth-mother, your burial mound is fifty feet
down in the Baker Street underground. (What the hell!)
Walking down the gutter thinking,
``How the hell am I today?''
Well, I didn't really ask you but thanks all the same.

Pig-Me And The Whore

``Big bottled Fraulein, put your weight on me,'' said the
pig-me to the whore,
desperate for more in his assault upon the mountain.
Little man, his youth a fountain.
Overdrafted and still counting.
Vernacular, verbose; an attempt at getting close to
where he came from.
In the doorway of the stars, between Blandford Street
and Mars;
Proposition, deal. Flying button feel. Testicle testing.
Wallet ever-bulging. Dressed to the left, divulging
the wrinkles of his years.
Wedding-bell induced fears.
Shedding bell-end tears in the pocket of her resistance.
International assistance flowing generous and full
to his never-ready tool.
Pulls his eyes over her wool.
And he shudders as he comes.
And my rudder slowly turns me into the Marylebone
Road.

Crash-Barrier Waltzer

And here slip I --- dragging one foot in the gutter ---
in the midnight echo of the shop that sells cheap
radios.
And there sits she --- no bed, no bread, no butter ---
on a double yellow line --- where she can park anytime.
Old Lady Grey; crash-barrier waltzer ---
some only son's mother. Baker Street casualty.
Oh, Mr. Policeman --- blue shirt ballet master.
Feet in sticking plaster ---
move the old lady on.
Strange pas-de-deux ---
his Romeo to her Juliet.
Her sleeping draught, his poisoned regret.
No drunken bums allowed to sleep here in the
crowded emptiness.
Oh officer, let me send her to a cheap hotel ---
I'll pay the bill and make her well - like hell you
bloody will!
No do-good over kill. We must teach them
to be still more independent.

Mother England Reverie

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!)

Jethro Tull- Baker St. Muse part 2, from the album Minstrel in the Gallery. Uploaded by request of Judashall

Category:

Music

Tags:

• jethro
• tull
• baker
• st
• street
• muse
• minstrel
• in
• the
• gallery

[HerbDangerous]

A masterpiece!

[GestureStew]

Ian Anderson is an actual musical genius; not the kind that gets called genius on a whim. The more one understands his art the more clear his genius becomes.

[progfan10]

@sjplwc Yep, I'd say it's gone. Just look up a clip of any recent Tull concert from the past few years - there's plenty of them around. He and Martin Barre are still out there playing, though. I just tried to listen to some of the show from Red Rocks from June (2011) - to hear Ian struggle through 'Thick as a Brick' was painful. His flute playing is great, though.

[sjplwc]

@progfan10 Is his voice really all that gone? Most recent thing I've heard from Ian is Tull's Christmas album, circa 2003. His pipes were still impressive at that point, unmistakable; not mid 70's caliber certainly, but quite nice. Of course, that was eight years ago. Yikes!! Sure makes me feel old.

[progfan10]

@sjplwc Yeah, agree completely.  Great string arrangements thoughout this composition. Also, Ian was in fine voice for this album - lots of passages where he holds notes or extends a word. Too bad his voice is mostly gone now. I wondered in a previous comment why there aren't any live versions of Baker St. Muse out there. Perhaps it was too logistically complicated to have a string quartet accompany the band.

[10squonk]

the beginning of this song, I could hear all day. Beautiful and great arrangement to boot. This song tends to lose me though after Crash Barrier Waltzer

[RomanticLinguaphilia]

This song is really neat stuff :-)

[dryflyguyok]

never mind that request, This is that song

[dryflyguyok]

The lyrics" I have no time..for time magazine..or movie scenes" what song is that ..anyone??

[sjplwc]

Could 8:02 be the one of the most gorgeous passages in all of classic "rock" music? The violins, the lush arrangement -- and that voice, that voice!! Nobody could blend hard charging, edgy rock music with a Celtic sensibility and flat out beautiful, orchestral melodies like Ian and the boys. Magnificent!!

[jatras]

...so I drift down through the Baker Street valley in my steep sided unreality...

[dablouze]

One of the best Ian Anderson music composition.