Lyrics to
Journeyman

This version of Journeyman was released by Jethro Tull in 1978.

Our About Jethro Tull page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Journeyman from 1978 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.

Spine-tingling railway sleepers —
Sleepy houses lying four-square and firm
Orange beams divide the darkness
Rumbling fit to turn the waking worm.
Sliding through Victorian tunnels
where green moss oozes from the pores.
Dull echoes from the wet embankments
Battlefield allotments. Fresh open sores.

In late night commuter madness
Double-locked black briefcase on the floor
like a faithful dog with master
sleeping in the draught beside the carriage door.
To each Journeyman his own home-coming
Cold supper nearing with each station stop
Frosty flakes on empty platforms
Fireside slippers waiting. Flip. Flop.

Journeyman night-tripping on the late fantasic
Too late to stop for tea at Gerard’s Cross
and hear the soft shoes on the footbridge shuffle
as the wheels turn biting on the midnight frost.
On the late commuter special
Carriage lights that flicker, fade and die
Howling into hollow blackness
Dusky diesel shudders in full cry.
Down redundant morning papers
Abandon crosswords with a cough
Stationmaster in his wisdom
told the guard to turn the heating off.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Journeyman. 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 music looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Journeyman by Jethro Tull

The lyrics for Journeyman are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Jethro Tull. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Journeyman have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Journeyman - Jethro Tull and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Journeyman by Jethro Tull in multiple ways. 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 Journeyman" means the words set to the music of Journeyman, 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 Journeyman and the lyrics to Journeyman 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 Journeyman, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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