Lyrics to
SeaLion

This version of Sealion was released by Jethro Tull in 1974.

Our About Jethro Tull page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Sealion from 1974 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.

Over the mountains, and under the sky —
riding dirty gray horses, go you and I.
Mating with chance, copulating with mirth —
the sad-glad paymasters (for what it’s worth).
The ice-cream castles are refrigerated;
the super-marketeers are on parade.
There’s a golden handshake hanging round your neck,
as you light your cigarette on the burning deck.
And you balance your world on the tip of your nose —
like a SeaLion with a ball, at the carnival.
You wear a shiny skin and a funny hat —
the Almighty Animal Trainer lets it go at that.
You bark ever-so-slightly at the Trainer’s gun,
with you whiskers melting in the noon-day sun.
You flip and you flop under the Big White Top
where the long-legged ring-mistress starts and stops.
But you know, after all, the act is wearing thin —
as the crowd grows uneasy and the boos begin.
But you balance your world on the tip of your nose —
you’re a SeaLion with a ball at the carnival.
Just a trace of pride upon our fixed grins —
for there is no business like the show we’re in.
There is no reason, no rhyme, no right
to leave the circus `til we’ve said good-night.
The same performance, in the same old way;
it’s the same old story to this Passion Play.
So we’ll shoot the moon, and hope to call the tune —
and make no pin cushion of this big balloon.
Look how we balance the world on the tips of our noses,
like SeaLions with a ball at the carnival.

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Jethro Tull has released many songs over the years besides Sealion. 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 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Sealion by Jethro Tull

When you decide to study the lyrics to Sealion, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Jethro Tull. Some of the lyrics to Sealion have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Jethro Tull and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Sealion 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 Sealion" means the words set to the music of Sealion, 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 Sealion and the lyrics to Sealion 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 Sealion, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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