A Walk with Aqualung – Mother Goose

Greetings Dear Reader,

I find the music in this song so very bright after the sweet sadness of Cheap Day Return.  The harmony between Ian Anderson and Martin Barre is almost playful.  Ian has said in a rare explanation of why he wrote a certain song that this was created to cheer him after writing Cheap Day Return.

There is has been much speculation as to the references in this song.  Here are my opinions and I claim no special knowledge as to the author’s intent.  He adds new characters that will appear again in other songs.  He also gives us a hint about what is happening around him.

Piccadilly Circus 1971

One must remember that Jethro Tull is beginning to experience real commercial success.  The band’s tours have expanded across the pond to the United States though I will not get to see them perform live until 1972 in their first visit to Atlanta.  This backdrop is necessary to see my perspective on this song.

I think that from the beginning Ian Anderson had a very deep feeling about the commercial aspect of the music world.  He was never in it for the money.  As he is writing and recording this album the Beatles are breaking up.  I think this is the reference to crying school girls.  I think as well that the comment about labourers and gold is a reference to his feelings about the money the band is making.  They work hard to make money to buy records whilst he sings and plays to get their money.

I also see a progression from the money aspect to the social aspect of wealth.  His character, Johnny Scarecrow will show up again in another song about the needs of the homeless.  Here, I believe he is commenting on the fact that a man is cold and a snowman has a mac or coat.  Can one really steal from a snowman?

What this song does for me is end a prelude.  We have seen Aqualung, Mary, Ian’s own sadness, and other social aspects of London (Piccadilly Circus).  The music is about to turn a corner going from specific to general; personal to universal.  I remember how much I enjoyed this song and played it over and over.  I researched the meaning of the things in it without the lovely aid of a computer (my first computer encounter was still fifteen years away).

What I saw then and still see clearly now is that even in our success there must be something outside of ourselves to which we give our attention.  Even in “cheering himself up” Ian Anderson considers the needs of others.  This gnawed at me because I was trying to close in on myself and shut the world out.  Here was an artist I admired telling me I could not.

Mother Goose – Ian Anderson

As I did walk by Hampstead Fair

I came upon Mother Goose 

So I turned her loose

She was screaming.

And a foreign student said to me

Was it really true there elephants and lions too in Piccadilly Circus?

Walked down by the bathing pond to try and catch some sun.

Saw at least a hundred schoolgirls sobbing into handkerchiefs as one.

I don't believe they knew I was a schoolboy.

And a bearded lady said to me

If you start your raving, and your misbehaving

You'll be sorry.

Then the chicken-fancier came to play

With his long red beard (and his sister's weird: She drives a lorry).

Laughed down by the putting green

I popped 'em in their holes.

Four and twenty labourers were labouring

Digging up their gold.

I don't believe they knew that I was Long John Silver.

Saw Johnny Scarecrow make his rounds in his jet-black 'mac

(Which he won't give back)  Stole it from a snowman.

As I did walk by Hampstead Fair

I came upon Mother Goose 

So I turned her loose

She was screaming.

Walked down by the bathing pond to try and catch some sun.

Saw at least a hundred schoolgirls sobbing into handkerchiefs as one.

I don't believe they knew I was a schoolboy.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."