Locomotive Breath (Jethro Tull cover)

Locomotive Breath
Written by Ian Anderson
Lead Vocals by James Young

Listen on YouTube

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 Gideon's 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

Interpretation

From Wikipedia:

Lyrically, "Locomotive Breath" was inspired by Anderson's concern regarding overpopulation. He explained, "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."