Lyrics to
Flotsam And Jetsam

This version of Flotsam And Jetsam was released by Peter Gabriel in 1978.

Our Decade Lyrics Peter Gabriel profile has all of the Flotsam And Jetsam lyrics from 1978 and many more songs from the Peter Gabriel discography that we have on file.

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

Doing nothing, stuck in the mud, just pumping the blood.
The water level’s getting low, something ugly’s going to show.

If only I could touch you, I guess you’d be alarmed.
If only I could touch you, I don’t mean you no harm.

If only I could touch you, like the wind can touch the sail,
If only I could touch you, darling, now that words have failed.
Oh, flotsam still afloat,
Oh, jetsam thrown out of the boat.

Oh love, my love, nothing here is what it seems.
We both know it; Christ, you show it…
Oh, oh my love.

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Peter Gabriel has released many songs over the years besides Flotsam And Jetsam. Peter Gabriel released songs from 1977 to 2002 spanning across albums like Car, Scratch, Melt, Security, So, Us, and Up. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Peter Gabriel.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Flotsam And Jetsam by Peter Gabriel

When you decide to study the lyrics to Flotsam And Jetsam, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1978 song by Peter Gabriel. Some of the lyrics to Flotsam And Jetsam have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Peter Gabriel and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Flotsam And Jetsam if you take apart the structure of the words. 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 Flotsam And Jetsam" means the words set to the music of Flotsam And Jetsam, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Peter Gabriel. 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 Flotsam And Jetsam and the lyrics to Flotsam And Jetsam are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Peter Gabriel who came here looking just for the lyrics to Flotsam And Jetsam, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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