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Top 100 Homeless Songs
​Song # 24

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"Aqualung"
​Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull are a British rock band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially playing blues rock and jazz fusion, the band later developed their sound to incorporate elements of hard rock and folk rock to forge a progressive rock signature. The band is led by vocalist/flutist/guitarist Ian Anderson.

The group first achieved commercial success in 1969, with the folk-tinged blues album Stand Up, which reached No. 1 in the 
​UK, and they toured regularly in the UK and the US. Their musical style shifted in the direction of progressive rock with the albums Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972) and A Passion Play (1973), and shifted again to hard rock mixed with folk rock with Songs from the Wood (1977) and Heavy Horses (1978). After an excursion into electronic rock in the early-to-mid 1980s, the band won its first and only Grammy Award with the 1987 album Crest of a Knave. Jethro Tull have sold an estimated 60 million albums worldwide, with 11 gold and five platinum albums among them. They have been described by Rolling Stone as "one of the most commercially successful and eccentric progressive rock bands".

Aqualung is the fourth studio album by the rock band Jethro Tull, released in 1971. In various songs on the album singer/songwriter Ian Anderson explores the struggles of the less fortunate in our society. The title song "Aqualung", was inspired by photographs of homeless people taken by Ian Andersons wife Jennie along the Thames River during the time the group was in recording sessions in London in 1971. The character, Aqualung, was an adaptation of Jennie's favorite homeless subject that she photographed more than any others. Through the photographs, Anderson created the character and brings him to life in the song. An artist was commissioned to paint the album cover using the images from photos and descriptions of the fictional homeless man according to the imaginations of Anderson. 

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​​Click the play button to hear the track​


"Aqualung"
Lyrics

Sitting on a park bench
Eyeing little girls with bad intent
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Hey, Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run
Hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck

Whoa, Aqualung

Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog-end
He goes down to the bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea

Aqualung my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see, it's only me

Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze?
When the ice that
Clings on to your beard was
Screaming agony (Hey!)
And you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea-diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring


Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog-end
He goes down to the bog and warms his feet

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see, it's only me

Me-me-me-me-me
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Dee-dee-dee-dee
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee
Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee
Dee-dee-dee-dee
Aqualung, my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see, it's only me

Sitting on a park bench
Eyeing little girls with bad intent
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Hey, Aqualung

Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run
Hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck
Hey, Aqualung

We are busy adding more songs relating to homelessness all the time
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