Artist: Jethro Tull Album: Warchild {1974}

Would you like another cup of tea, dear
Um, no, no, no - I, I'd better go, actually, I'm going to be late for the office


I'll take you down to that bright city mile
There to powder your sweet face and paint on a smile
That will show all of the pleasures and none of the pain
When you join my explosion and play with my games

Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away
Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away

No unconditional surrender, no armistice day
Each night I'll die in my contentment and lie in your grave
While you bring me water and I give you wine
Let me dance in your tea-cup and you shall swim in mine

Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away

Open your windows and I'll walk through your doors
Let me live in your country, let me sleep by your shores

Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away
Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away
Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away
Warchild, dance the days and dance the nights away
Warchild

The wind is on the river and the tide has turned too late
So, we're sailing for another shore where some other ladies wait
To throw us silken whispers, catch us by the anchor chains
But we all laugh so politely and we sail on just the same
For Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away

We bring back gold and ivory, rings of diamond, strings of pearls
Make presents to the government so they can have their social whirl
With Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away

For Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away
They build schools and they build factories with the spoils of battles won
And we remain their pretty sailor boys, hold our heads up to the gun
Of Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away
To Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away
To Queen and country in the long dying day
And it's been this way for five long years, since we signed our souls away

Ladies of leisure with their eyes on the back roads
All looking for strangers to whom they extend welcomes
With a smile and a glimpse of pink knees and elbows
Of satin and velvet - good ladies, good fortune

Ladies, ladies
Ladies, ladies

They sing of their heroes, of solitary soldiers
Invested in good health and manner most charming
Whose favors are numbered, none the less, well intended
By hours in a minute, by those ladies who bless them

Ladies, ladies

In and out of the front door ran twelve back-door angels
Their hair was a golden brown, they didn't see me wink my eye
Tis said they put we men to sleep with just a whisper
And touch the heads of dying dogs and make them linger
But they carry their candles high and they light the dark hours
And sweep all the country clean with pressed and scented wild-flowers

They grow all their roses red and paint our skies blue
Drop one penny in every second bowl, make half the beggars lose
Why do the faithful have such a will to believe in something
And call it the name they choose, having chosen nothing

Think I'll sit down and invent some fool, some grand court jester
And next time the die is cast he'll throw a six or two
In and out of the back-door ran one front-door angel
Her hair was a golden brown, she smiled and I think she winked her eye

One, two - a-one, two, three, two, two, three


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 supermarketeers 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 your 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 grow 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 till we've said goodnight
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


Would you like another cup of tea, dear

Meanwhile back in the year one
When you belonged to no one
You didn't stand a chance, son
If your pants were undone
Cos you were bred for humanity
And sold to society
One day you'll wake up in the present day
A million generations removed from expectations
Of being who you really want to be

Skating away, skating away
Skating away on the thin ice of the new day

So, as you push off from the shore
Won't you turn your head once more
And make your peace with everyone
For those who choose to stay
Will live just one more day
To do the things they should have done
And as you cross the wilderness, spinning in your emptiness
You feel you have to pray
Looking for a sign that the Universal Mind
Has written you into the Passion Play

Skating away, skating away
Skating away on the thin ice of the new day

And as you cross the circle line
Well, the ice-wall creaks behind
You're a rabbit on the run
And the silver splinters fly
In the corner of your eye
Shining in the setting sun
Well, do you ever get the feeling that the story's too damn real
And in the present tense
Or that everybody's on the stage and it seems like you're the only
Person sitting in the audience

Skating away, skating away
Skating away on the thin ice of the new day
Skating away, skating away, skating away

Walking through forests of palm tree apartments
Scoff at the monkeys who live in their dark tents
Down by the waterhole, drunk every Friday
Eating their nuts, saving their raisins for Sunday
Lions and tigers who wait in the shadows
They're fast but they're lazy and sleep in green meadows

Well, let's bungle in the jungle
Well, that's all right by me, yes
Well, I'm a tiger when I want love
But I'm a snake if we disagree

Just say a word and the boys will be right there
With claws at your back to send a chill through the night air
Is it so frightening to have me at your shoulder
Thunder and lightning couldn't be bolder
I'll write on your tombstone, "I thank you for dinner."
This game that we animals play is a winner

Well, let's bungle in the jungle
Well, that's all right by me, yes
I'm a tiger when I want love
I'm a snake if we disagree, yes

The rivers are full of crocodile nasties
And He who made kittens put snakes in the grass
He's a lover of life, but a player of pawns, yes
The King on His sunset lies waiting for dawn
To light up His jungle as play is resumed
The monkeys seem willing to strike up the tune

Well, let's bungle in the jungle
Well, that's all right by me, yes
Well, I'm a tiger when I want love
But I'm a snake when we disagree, yes
Let's bungle in the jungle
Well, that's all right by me, yes
Well, I'm a tiger when I want love
And I'm a snake when we disagree, yeah
Well, let's bungle in the jungle
Well, that's all right by me, yes
Well, I'm a tiger when I want love

Brain-storming, habit-forming, battle-warning
Weary, winsome actor spewing spineless, chilling lines
The critics falling over to tell themselves he's boring
And really not an awful lot of fun
Well, who the hell can he be when he's never had V.D.
And he doesn't even sit on toilet seats
Court-jesting, never-resting
He must be very cunning to assume an air of dignity
And bless us all with his oratory prowess
His lame-brained antics and his jumping in the air
And every night his act's the same
And so it must be all a game of chess he's playing

But you're wrong, Steve - you see, it's only solitaire

Hoorah

Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
When your back's to the wall
And your luck is your all
Then side with whoever you may
Seek that which within
Lies waiting to begin
The fight of your life that is everyday
Dance with the Warchild, the Warchild - hoorah
Dance with the Warchild, the Warchild - hoorah

Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today

Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
In the heart of your heart
There's the tiniest part
Of an urge to live to the death
With your sword on your hip
And a cry on your lips
To strike life in the inner child's breast
Dance with the Warchild, the Warchild - hoorah
Dance with the Warchild, the Warchild - hoorah

Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today
Warchild, dance the days and nights away
Sweet child, how do you do today

I'll see you at the weighing-in when your life's sum-total's made

I�ll see you at the weighing-in when you�re life�s sum-total�s made
And you set your wealth in goodly deeds against the sins you�ve laid
And you place your final burden on your hard-pressed next of kin
Send the chamber pot back down the line to be filled up again, oh
And the hard-headed miracle worker who bathes his hands in blood
Will welcome you to the final nod and cover you with mud
And he'll say, "You really should make the deal," as he offers round the hat
Well, you'd better lick two fingers clean, he'll thank you all for that

As you slip on the greasy platform and you land upon your back
You make a wish and you wipe your nose upon the railway track
While the high-strung locomotive, with furnace burning bright
Lumbers on you wave goodbye and the sparks fade into night, yeah, uh huh

And as you join the Good Ship Earth and you mingle with the dust
You'd better leave your underpants with someone you can trust
And when the old man with the telescope cuts the final strand
You'd better lick two fingers clean before you shake his hand