Lyrics to
Jack-In-The-Green

This version of Jack-In-The-Green was released by Jethro Tull in 1977.

Our About Jethro Tull page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Jack-In-The-Green from 1977 as well as all of the other lyrics from Jethro Tull that we have in our lyrics database.

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

Have you seen Jack-In-The-Green?
With his long tail hanging down.
He sits quietly under every tree —
in the folds of his velvet gown.
He drinks from the empty acorn cup
the dew that dawn sweetly bestows.
And taps his cane upon the ground —
signals the snowdrops it’s time to grow.

It’s no fun being Jack-In-The-Green —
no place to dance, no time for song.
He wears the colours of the summer soldier —
carries the green flag all the winter long.

Jack, do you never sleep —
does the green still run deep in your heart?
Or will these changing times,
motorways, powerlines,
keep us apart?
Well, I don’t think so —
I saw some grass growing through the pavements today.

The rowan, the oak and the holly tree
are the charges left for you to groom.
Each blade of grass whispers Jack-In-The-Green.
Oh Jack, please help me through my winter’s night.
And we are the berries on the holly tree.
Oh, the mistlethrush is coming.
Jack, put out the light.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Jack-In-The-Green. 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 popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Jack-In-The-Green by Jethro Tull

The lyrics to Jack-In-The-Green are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Jethro Tull used when the song was created in 1977. The lyrics to Jack-In-The-Green 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 Jack-In-The-Green 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 Jack-In-The-Green" means the words set to the music of Jack-In-The-Green, 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 Jack-In-The-Green and the lyrics to Jack-In-The-Green 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 Jack-In-The-Green, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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