Lyrics to
Orion

This version of Orion was released by Jethro Tull in 1979.

Our Jethro Tull Songs profile has Orion lyrics from 1979 and most if not all of the lyrics by Jethro Tull that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

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

Orion, won’t you give me your star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I’m high on my hill and I feel fine
Orion, let’s sip the heaven’s heady wine

Orion, light your lights:
come guard the open spaces
from the black horizon to the pillow where I lie.
Your faithful dog shines brighter than its lord and master
Your jewelled sword twinkles as the world rolls by.
So come up singing above the cloudy cover
Stare through at people who toss fitful in their sleep.
I know you’re watching as the old gent by the station
scuffs his toes on old fag packets lying in the street
And silver shadows flick across the closing bistro.
Sweet waiters link their arms and patter down the street,
their words lost blowing on cold winds in darkest Chelsea.
Prime years fly fading with each young heart’s beat

Orion, won’t you make me a star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I’m high on your love and I feel fine
Orion, let’s sip the heaven’s heady wine

And young girls shiver as they wait by lonely bus-stops
after sad parties: no-one to take them home
to greasy bed-sitters and make a late-night play
for lost virginity a thousand miles away.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Orion. 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 lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Orion by Jethro Tull

The lyrics to Orion are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Jethro Tull used when the song was created in 1979. The lyrics to Orion 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 Orion 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 Orion" means the words set to the music of Orion, 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 Orion and the lyrics to Orion 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 Orion, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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