JETHRO TULL: Stormwatch (1979)

1. North Sea Oil
2. Orion
3. Home
4. Dark Ages
5. Warm Sporran
6. Something's on the Move
7. Old Ghosts
8. Dun Ringill
9. Flying Dutchman
10. Elegy

NORTH SEA OIL
Black and viscous bound to cure blue lethargy
Sugar-plum petroleum for energy
Tightrope-balanced payments need a small reprieve
Oh, please believe we want to be
in North Sea Oil
New-found wealth sits on the shelf of yesterday
Hot-air balloon inflation soon will make you pay
Riggers rig and diggers dig their shallow grave
But we’ll be saved and what we crave
Is North Sea Oil
Prices boom in Aberdeen and London Town
Ten more years to lay the fears, erase the frown
before we are all nuclear the better way!
Oh, let us pray: we want to stay

in North Sea Oil.

ORION
Orion, won't you give me your star signOrion, 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 de 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.

HOME
As the dawn sun breaks over sleepy gardens
I'll be here to do all things to comfort you.
And though I’ve been away
left you alone this way
why don’t you come awake
and left your first smile take me home
The shadows in the park were longer yesterday
and Lady Luck stood still, waiting for the kill.
And on a jumbo ride
over seas grey, deep and wide
I flew for heaven's sake
and let the angels take me home.
Down steep and narrow lanes I see the chimneys smoking
above the golden fields … know what the robin feels
in his summer jamboree.
All elements agree
in sweet and stormy blend

midwife to winds that send me home.

DARK AGES
Darlings are you ready for the long winter's fall?
Said the lady in her parlor
said the butler in the hall.
Is there time for another?
Cried the drunkard in his sleep.
Not likely
said the little child. What's done
the Lord can keep.
And the vicar stands a-praying.
And the television dies
as the white dot flickers and is gone
and no-one stops to cry.
The big jet rumbles over runway miles
that scar the patchwork green
where slick tycoons and rich buffoons
have opened up the seam
of golden nights and champagne flights
ad-man overkill
and in the haze
consumer crazed
we take the sugar pill.
Jagged fires mark the picket lines
the politicians weep
and mealy-mouthed
through corridors of power on tip-toe creep.
Come and see bureaucracy
Make its final heave
And let the new disorder through
While senses take their leave.
Families screaming line the streets
and put the windows through
in corner shops
where keepers kept
the country’s life-blood blue.
Take their pick
And try the trick
with loaves and fishes shared
and the vicar shouts
as the lights go out
and no-one really cares

Dark Ages
shaking the dead
Closed pages
better not read
Cold rages

burn in your head.

WARM SPORRAN

(Instrumental)

SOMETHING’S ON THE MOVE
She wore a black tiara
rare gems upon her fingers
and she came from distant waters
where northern lights explode
to celebrate the dawning
of the new wastes of winter
gathering royal momentum
on the icy road.
With chill mists swirling
like petticoats in motion
sighted on horizons
for ten thousand years
the lady of the ice sounds
a deathly distant rumble
to Titanic-breaking children lost
in melting crystal tears.

Oh, sunshine take me now away from here
I'm a needle on a spiral in a groove.
And the turntable spins
as the last waltz begins
And the weather-man says
something's on the move

Capturing black pieces
in a glass-fronted museum
the white queen rolls
on the chessboard of the dawn
squeezing through the valleys
pausing briefly in the corries
the Ice-Mother mates
and a new age is born.

Oh, sunshine take me now away from here
I'm a needle on a spiral in a groove.
And the turntable spins
as the last waltz begins
And the weather-man says
something's on the move

Driving all before her
un-stoppable, un-straining
her cold creaking mass
follows reindeer down
Thin spreading fingers seek
to embrace the sill-warm bundles
that huddle on the doorsteps
of a white London Town.

Oh, sunshine take me now away from here
I'm a needle on a spiral in a groove.
And the turntable spins
as the last waltz begins
And the weather-man says
something's on the move.

OLD GHOSTS
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.

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.

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.

DUN RINGILL
Clear light on a slick palm
as I mis-deal the day
Slip the night from a shaved pack
make a marked card play
Call twilight hours down
from a heaven home
high above the highest bidder
for the good Lord's throne
In the wee hours I'll meet you
down by Dun Ringill
oh, and we'll watch the old gods play
by Dun Ringill
We’ll wait in stone circles
‘til the force comes through
lines joint in faint discord
and the stormwatch brews
a concert of kings
as the white sea snaps
at the heels of a soft prayer
whispered
In the wee hours I'll meet you
down by Dun Ringill
oh, and I'll take you quickly

by Dun Ringill.

FLYING DUTCHMAN
Old lady with a barrow; life near ending
Standing by the harbour wall; warm wishes sending
children on the cold sea swell
not fishers of men
gone to chase away the last herring:
come empty home again.
So come all you lovers of the good life
on your supermarket run
Set a sail of your own devising
and be there when the Dutchman comes.
Wee girl in a straw hat: from far east warring
Sad cargo of an old ship: young bodies whoring
Slow ocean hobo ports closed to her crew
No hope of immigration keep on passing through.
So come all you lovers of the good life
your children playing in the sun
set a sympathetic flag a-flying
and be there when the Dutchman comes.
Death grinning like a scarecrow Flying Dutchman
Seagull pilots flown from nowhere try and touch one
as she slips in on the full tide
and the harbour-master yells
All hands vanished with the captain
no one left, the tale to tell.

So come all you lovers of the good life
Look around you, can you see?
Staring ghostly in the mirror
It’s the Dutchman you will be
Floating slowly out to sea
In a misty misery.

ELEGY

(Instrumental)