Lyrics to
Old Ghosts

This version of Old Ghosts was released by Jethro Tull in 1979.

Visit the Jethro Tull Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the Old Ghosts lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by Jethro Tull.

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

Hair stands high on the cat’s back like
a ridge of threatening hills.
Sheepdogs howl, make tracks and growl —
their tails hanging low.
And young children falter in their games
at the altar of life’s hide-and-seek
between tall pillars, where Sunday-night killers
in grey raincoats peek.

Misty colours unfold a backcloth cold —
fine tapestry of silk
I draw around me like a cloak
and soundless glide a-drifting
on eddies whirled in beech leaves furled —
brown and gold they fly
in the warm mesh of sunlight
sifting now from a cloudless sky.

I’ll be coming again like an old dog in pain
Blown through the eye of the hurricane
Down to the stones where old ghosts play.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Old Ghosts. 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 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Old Ghosts by Jethro Tull

The lyrics for Old Ghosts are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1979 song by Jethro Tull. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Old Ghosts 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 Old Ghosts - 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 Old Ghosts 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 Old Ghosts" means the words set to the music of Old Ghosts, 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 Old Ghosts and the lyrics to Old Ghosts 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 Old Ghosts, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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