Jethro Tull : Benefit

Prog Folk / United-Kingdom
(1970 - Capitol Records)
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Lyrics


1. WITH YOU THERE TO HELP ME

In days of peace
Sweet smelling summer nights
Of wine and song;
Dusty pavements burning feet.
Why am I crying, I want to know.
How can I smile and make it right?
For sixty days and eighty nights
And not give in and lose the fight.

I'm going back to the ones that I know,
With whom I can be what I want to be.
Just one week for the feeling to go
And with you there to help me
Then it probably will.

I won't go down
Acting the same old play.
Give sixty days for just one night.
Don't think I'd make it: but then I might.

I'm going back to the ones that I know,
With whom I can be what I want to be.
Just one week for the feeling to go
And with you there to help me
Then it probably will.


2. NOTHING TO SAY

Everyday there's someone asking "What is there to do?"
Should I love or should I fight, is it all the same to you?
No I say I have the answer proven to be true,
But if I were to share it with you,
you would stand to gain and I to lose.
Oh I couldn't bear it so I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say.

Every morning pressure forming all around my eyes.
Ceilings crash, the walls collapse, broken by the lies
that your misfortune brought upon us and I won't disguise them.

So don't ask me will I explain, I won't even begin to tell you why.
No, just because I have a name well I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say.
Climb a tower of freedom, paint your own deceiving sign.
It's not my power to criticize or to ask you to be blind
To your own pressing problem and the hate you must unwind.
So ask of me no answer there is none that I could give you wouldn't find.
I went your way ten years ago and I've got nothing to say.
Nothing to say


3. INSIDE

All the places I've been make it hard to begin
To enjoy life again on the inside, but I mean to.
Take a walk around the block
And be glad that I've got me some time
To be in from the outside,
And inside with you.

I'm sitting on the corner feeling glad.
Got no money coming in but I can't be sad.
That was the best cup of coffee I ever had.
And I won't worry about a thing
Because we've got it made,
Here on the inside, outside so far away.

And we'll laugh and we'll sing get someone to bring
Our friends here for tea in the evening
Old Jeffrey makes three.
Take a walk in the park, does the wind in the dark
Sound like music to you?
Well I'm thinking it does to me.

Can you cook, can you sew? Well, I don't want to know.
That is not what you need on the inside, to make the time go.
Counting lambs, counting sheep
We will fall into sleep
And we awake to a new day of living
And loving you so.


4. ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN

Nobody sees her here, her eyes are slowly closing.
If she should want some peace she sits there, without moving,
And puts a pillow over the phone.
And if she feels like dancing, no one will know it.
Giving herself a chance there's no need to show her how it should be.

She can't remember now when she was all in pieces,
She's quite content to sit there listening to what he says,
How he didn't like to be alone.
And if he feels like crying she's there to hear him,
No reason to complain and nothing to fear, they always will be.


5. SON

Oh, I feel sympathy. Be grateful my son for what you get.
Expression and passion. Ten days for watching the sunset;
when I was your age amusement we made for ourselves.
"Permission to breathe sir,'' don't talk like that, I'm your old man.
They'll soon be demobbed son, so join up as soon as you can.
You can't borrow that 'cause that's for the races and doesn't grow on trees.
I only feel what touches me
And feel in touching I can see
A better state to be in.
Who has the right
To question what I might do,
In feeling I should touch the real
And only things I feel.

It's advice and it's nice to know when you're best advised.
You've only turned thirty, so son, you'd better apologize.
And when you grow up, if you're good we will buy you a bike


6. FOR MICHAEL COLLINS, JEFFREY AND ME

Watery eyes of the last sighing seconds,
Blue reflections mute and dim
Beckon tearful child of wonder
To repentance of the sin.
And the blind and lusty lovers
Of the great eternal lie
Go on believing nothing
Since something has to die.
And the ape's curiosity
Money power wins,
And the yellow soft mountains move under him.

I'm with you L.E.M.
Though it's a shame that it had to be you.
The mother ship is just a blip
From your trip made for two.
I'm with you boys, so please employ just a little extra care.
It's on my mind I'm left behind
When I should have been there.
Walking with you.

And the limp face hungry viewers
Fight to fasten with their eyes
Like the man hung from the trapeze
Whose fall will satisfy.
And congratulate each other
On their rare and wondrous deed

That their begrudged money bought
To sow the monkey's seed.
And the yellow soft mountains
They grow very still
Witness as intrusion the humanoid thrill


7. TO CRY YOU A SONG

Flying so high, trying to remember
How many cigarettes did I bring along?
When I get down I'll jump in a taxi cab
Driving through London town
To cry you a song.

It's been a long time
Still shaking my wings.
Well, I'm a glad bird
I got changes to ring.

Closing my dream inside its paper-bag.
Thought I saw angels
But I could have been wrong.
Search in my case,
Can't find what they're looking for.
Waving me through
To cry you a song.

It's been a long time
Still shaking my wings.
Well I'm a glad bird
I got changes to ring.

Lights in the street,
Peeping through curtains drawn.
Rattling of safety chain taking too long.
The smile in your eyes was never so sweet before
Came down from the skies
To cry you a song


8. A TIME FOR EVERYTHING

Once it seemed there would always be
A time for everything.
Ages passed I knew at last
my life had never been.

I'd been missing what time could bring.
Fifty years and I'm filled with tears and joys
I never cried.
Burn the wagon and chain the mule.
The past is all denied.
There's no time for everything.
No time for everything.


9. PLAY IN TIME

Got to take in what I can.
There is no time to do what must be done,
While I do some thinking.
Sleeping is hard to come by,
So we'll all sit down and try to play in time,
And we feel like singing.
Talking to people in my way.

Blues were my favorite colour,
Til I looked around and found another song
That I felt like singing.
Trying so hard to reach you;
Playing what must be played, what must be sung
And it's what I'm singing.
Talking to people in my way.


10. SOSSITY: YOU'RE A WOMAN

Hello you straight-laced lady,
Dressed in white but your shoes aren't clean.
Painted them up with polish
In the hope we can't see where you've been.
The smiling face that you've worn
To greet me rising at morning
Sent me out to work for my score.
Please me and say what it's for.

Give me the straight-laced promise
And not the pathetic lie.
Tie me down with your ribbons
And sulk when I ask you why.
Your Sunday paper voice cries
Demanding truths I deny.
The bitter-sweet kiss you pretended
Is offered, our affair mended.
Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.

All of the tears you're wasting
Are for yourself and not for me.
It's sad to know you're aging
Sadder still to admit I'm free.
Your immature physical toy has grown,
Too young to enjoy at last your straight-laced agreement:
Woman, you were too old for me.

Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.




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