Lyrics to
Cross-Eyed Mary

This version of Cross-Eyed Mary was released by Jethro Tull in 1971.

Our Decade Lyrics Jethro Tull profile has all of the Cross-Eyed Mary lyrics from 1971 and many more songs from the Jethro Tull discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Jethro Tull or about the 1970s in general.

Who would be a poor man, a beggarman, a thief —
if he had a rich man in his hand.
And who would steal the candy
from a laughing baby’s mouth
if he could take it from the money man.
Cross-eyed Mary goes jumping in again.
She signs no contract
but she always plays the game.
Dines in Hampstead village
on expense accounted gruel,
and the jack-knife barber drops her off at school.
Laughing in the playground — gets no kicks from little boys:
would rather make it with a letching grey.
Or maybe her attention is drawn by Aqualung,
who watches through the railings as they play.
Cross-eyed Mary finds it hard to get along.
She’s a poor man’s rich girl
and she’ll do it for a song.
She’s a rich man stealer
but her favour’s good and strong:
She’s the Robin Hood of Highgate —
helps the poor man get along.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Cross-Eyed Mary. Jethro Tull released songs from 1968 to 2003 spanning across albums like This Was, Stand Up, Benefit, Aqualung, Living In The Past, Thick As A Brick, A Passion Play, Warchild, Minstrel In The Gallery, Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young To Die!, Songs From The Wood, Heavy Horses, Stormwatch, A, The Broadsword And The Beast, Under Wraps, Crest Of A Knave, Rock Island, Catfish Rising, Nightcap, Roots To Branches, J-Tull Dot Com, and The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Jethro Tull.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1971 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Cross-Eyed Mary by Jethro Tull

The lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Jethro Tull used when the song was created in 1971. The lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Jethro Tull and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary by Jethro Tull. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary" means the words set to the music of Cross-Eyed Mary, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Jethro Tull. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Cross-Eyed Mary and the lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Jethro Tull who came here looking just for the lyrics to Cross-Eyed Mary, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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