JETHRO TULL: Curious Ruminant (2025)

 

1. Puppet and the Puppet Master
2. Curious Ruminant
3. Dunsinane Hill
4. The Tipu House
5. Savannah of Paddington Green
6. Stygian Hand
7. Over Jerusalem
8. Drink from the Same Well
9. Interim Sleep

PUPPET AND THE PUPPET MASTER

Holding court on a black box stage, dangling from the strings

I twirl and face the music and the prompter in the wings

I am both willing puppet, puppet master also

With lofty expectations set to pull me to and fro

I live only to serve, bring smiles to friendly faces

Dancing on a sixpence, singing from a tree

With birds of a feather chirping high and low together

Make everybody happy, starting with me

Please feel no sorrow or remorse, I dance willing only to

A tune crafted by me, both captain and crew

In a black box cage, rattling at soft bars

Bendy steel to part, I slip through to the stars

Through the duskfall peeping, me, unlikely lad

To paint a smile behind the mask, the pay is not too bad

I, the willing puppet, puppet master also

Lofty expectations set to pull me to and fro

To and fro, fro and two, to and fro

CURIOUS RUMINANT

I count my life in seconds passed

In meeting minutes, hours surpass

Days of quiet watching felt upper class

Flow through the years, wondering aloud

Needle matches spark my fires

Dissenting voices from steeple spires

Ring out across the woody hills

As brief as mad March daffodils

Asking "Why am I here?"

Answering "Why am I anywhere?"

Orbiting construct of Jung and Freud

Psycho dreaming asteroid

Faced with big questions, toss and turn

Unfit to frolic, unconcerned

Asking "Why am I here?"

Answering "Why am I anywhere?"

Orbiting construct of Jung and Freud

Psycho dreaming asteroid

Ruminant pleasures, write them down

Harsh adjective, improper noun

We consider each every day

I'll change my viewpoint, shift and sway

No pedant pickle, soup, or stew

Sit on the fence, enjoy the view

Needle matches spark my fires

Dissenting voices from steeple spires

Ring out across the woody hills

As brief as mad March daffodils

Dead gone, detached from your reality

Pray, thinker, be kindly anyway

In wee hours you peer midst the gathering gloom

My ghostly whisper, "Cogito, ergo sum"

DUNSINANE HILL

We two hard men of arms as brothers roam the Commons

Encounter pushy spin doctors, one, two, and three

Whispering dark prophesies, with their cackling and their moaning

I am seduced by wicked promises of the Walpole house to me

Here rule I from high on Dunsinane Hill

But first, I have to banish, blame the deed on servile others

They must be cast out into exile and gone without delay

God save me, king of cabinet, now I look over my shoulder

To see my brother warrior, damned spot to wash away

Such treachery unbecoming tears my heart strings still strumming

But my options grow diminished, no choice but to betray

See the wooded lower chamber, a cloak of green disguise

I nurse bleak imaginings amidst that Quercus wall

Mere matter of delusion, no Speaker's firm intrusion

Let guilty solace soon surpass the tears that fall

I shall reign resolved, proud, never vanquished until

Great Birnam Wood comes to high Dunsinane Hill

To high Dunsinane Hill

THE TIPU HOUSE

In the Tipu house live all kinds of people

Old ladies up the back stairs

Young wives drained away

The useless husband's drink

Through the long, cold evening

Maybe I could be one with some practice and a prayer

Oh, God's children play in the toxic city garden

Stealing from their brethren a saucy view of war

Of domestic incidents, a guilty copulation

The day of books and roses shown firmly to the door

In the Tipu house, you feel for your neighbor

Trade rice and greasy vegetables

Shoulders on which to cry

You don't feel so good about them

Quite all of the time

And someone has to fix the plumbing

Or at least give it a try

Oh, God's children play in the toxic city garden

Stealing from their brethren a saucy view of war

Of domestic incidents, a guilty copulation

The day of books and roses shown firmly to the door

In the Tipu house, there's a quiet and distant babble

Marital possibilities for all a kind in the air

Secrets for better dowries, for joining better families

Whispered promises in the hubbub of the market square

Oh, God's children play in the toxic city garden

Stealing from their brethren a saucy view of war

Of domestic incidents, a guilty copulation

The day of books and roses shown firmly to the door

In the Tipu house, there are forever changes

Young gladiators nourished by the football terrace beat

Aspired to fly in the moneylenders' temples of Madrid

Dream hungry dreams in smooth Brioni, turning up the heat

SAVANNAH OF PADDINGTON GREEN

Glimpse me, squeeze me, see if I'm real

Tangible fauna, slippery eel

Chart me and dart me, faint dot on the screen

On the urban savannah of Paddington Green

I am the wild beast, tiny part of the herd

Flock, shoal and theatre of the absurd

Compare us to lemmings, death wish contemplation

Or in mindlessly happy sweet murmuration

Wheeling and whirling, in social display

Free flight celebration of synchronous play

Irresponsible echoes best heard and not seen

Over urban savannah of Paddington Green

I have a faint folk memory of trees, lush meadows

Right here on this spot where dust gathers and blows

Threatening species, we turned in on ourselves

Like others before us, now left on the shelves

Wheeling and whirling, in social display

Free flight celebration of synchronous play

Irresponsible echoes best heard and not seen

Over urban savannah of Paddington Green

But hey, we had glorious times of sweet ignorance

Reveling in shady, shared points of indifference

Adjacent cracked flyover, silent, serene

By the urban savannah of Paddington Green

By the urban savannah of Paddington Green

Of Paddington Green, of Paddington Green

Of Paddington Green

STYGIAN HAND

Cobbled road, cobbled way, dark as pitch, grey mist swirling

Something lightly treading, this way comes

Could be the bobby on his beat, torch probe a-curling

Along the dead-end alley between the slums

Crash! The Stygian hand, against my brow

Unholy tempter, with confrontation face

I proffer cross of comfort, defiant exorcism

No starting gun to join this hoary devil's race

Symbol of faith, symbol of sacrifice

Icon of glory, graven in gold

Alpha, Omega, and all things between

Strength to the bearer, good grace to behold

Glimpse of peace and grasp of last hope divine

In the gathering dusk, when nightlights dim

Give firm resolve in times of desperation

As spectral visitants in life's dark corridor swim

Symbol of faith, symbol of sacrifice

Icon of glory, graven in gold

Alpha, Omega, and all things between

Strength to the bearer, good grace to behold

Cobbled roadway, dark as pitch, grey mist swirling

Something lightly treading, this way comes

Could be the bobby on his beat, torch probe a-curling

Along the dead-end alley between the slums

Crash! The Stygian hand, against my brow

Unholy tempter, with confrontation face

I proffer cross of comfort, defiant exorcism

No starting gun to join this hoary devil's race

OVER JERUSALEM

Am I the hawk? Am I the dove?

The vulture swooping down from above?

Am I the drone, circling high

Whirring tuneless, pie-eyed in the sky?

Angry gods of retribution

Driving hate without solution

City, home to all who came and ever will

Long lost tribes, invaders of old

Staking their claim to spiritual gold

Layers of antiquity buried below

Each with a sad tale to better not know

There is no time for meditation

Pause for thought or hesitation

Set in stone, firm pledges to fulfil

Angry gods of retribution

Driving hate without solution

City, home to all who came and ever will

Rocks upon rocks

Ashes on ashes

Bagels and lox

Warak dawali

Divisible loaves

Two fish from the Galilee

As friends sit and dine

Take water and wine

I walk the cobbled alleys nervously

Soldier girls, soldier boys stare at me

Down the line, out of time, switch alliance in my mind

I walk the cobbled alleys nervously

Soldier girls and soldier boys stare at me

Down the line, out of time, switch alliance in my mind

Am I the hawk? Am I the dove?

The vulture swooping down from above?

Am I the drone, circling high

Whirring tuneless, pie-eyed in the sky?

There is no time for meditation

Pause for thought or hesitation

Set in stone, firm pledges to fulfil

Angry gods of retribution

Driving hate without solution

City, home to all who came and ever will

But I never will

I'm not over Jerusalem

Jerusalem

DRINK FROM THE SAME WELL

I drink from the same well as you

I drink from the same well as you

Throng of disparate priestly spirits

Wind-blown, drift on the blood-red sands

They cast a spell of early warning

No welcome shake of their blood-red hands

They drink from the same well as you

They drink from the same well as you

A nod, a wink from the neon bar

In a sad backstreet of sweet ladyboys

Defy the leer of phobic drunken

Macho men chanting football noise

They drink from the same well as you

Yes, and they drink from the same well as you

Draw the bucket, roll the dice

Call the coin, call it twice

Tell me which way you choose

Do I care? Yours to lose

I drink from the same well as you

Yes, and I drink from the same well as you

Culture bending, message sending

Shouts of river to the sea

Displaying wilful ignorance

As to shifting tides of history

They drink from the same well as you

Yes, and they drink from the same well as you

We lovers lost in doomed matrimony

Cast adrift on an angry sea

Of angry words, vicious, vindictive

Low-hanging fruit on Eve's poisoned tree

I drink from the same well as you

You drink from the same well as me

Yes, I drink from the same well as you

Yes, and you drink from the same well as me

Chew it over, chew the cud

Join hand in hand before the flood

Tell me which way you choose

Do I care? Yours to lose

INTERIM SLEEP

When interim sleep takes me

I want you close beside

No tears, no sad goodbye

I am calm and still as a fallen autumn leaf

When that interim sleep takes me

I will pass first into a room next door

Not far away, nor lost to finer senses

Not gone forever, nor to be forgotten

And when your turn comes at last

To close those waking eyes

Pass willing to the room next door

Seeking no blameless redemption

Walk to that open window, open to the stars

Look out down the winding river valley

Where lights sparkle, marking stations

Stations where trains start and stop

On the separate journeys of our many lives

High above the nearest empty station

Flies a solitary bird, faint in the higher distance

Circling, soaring in the infinite blue

Reach up to that bird to find me waiting

On firm, welcoming, feathered wings

Together we will circle in that infinite blue

Glide down past stately barges to the next twinkling station

Buy tickets, stow useless excess baggage

To board the onward train, another journey