Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull

Released in 1971 on the Aqualung Album, this is a fast moving, hard rocking song. 

According to Ian Anderson, "It was my first song that was perhaps on a topic that would be a little more appropriate to today's world. It was about the runaway train of population growth and capitalism, it was based on those sorts of unstoppable ideas. We’re on this crazy train, we can’t get off it. Where is it going? Bearing in mind, of course, when I was born in 1947, the population of planet earth was slightly less than a third of what it is today, so it should be a sobering thought that in one man’s lifetime, our planetary population has more than tripled. You'd think population growth would have brought prosperity, happiness, food and a reasonable spread of wealth, but quite the opposite has happened. And is happening even more to this day. Without putting it into too much literal detail, that was what lay behind that song.”

The song was pieced together using various overdubs. Anderson is well known for being a fantastic flutist and this piece lets his light shine. 

Lyrics – Locomotive Breath

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death


Oh, he feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow
Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train it won't stop
Oh no way to slow down


He sees his children jumping off
At the stations one by one
His woman and his best friend
In bed and having fun
Oh, he's crawling down the corridor
On his hands and knees
Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train it won't stop going
No way to slow down
Hey


He hears the silence howling
Catches angels as they fall
And the all-time winner
Has got him by the balls
Oh, he picks up Gideons bible
Open at page one
I think God he stole the handle
And the train it won't stop going


No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down
No way to slow down