| Jethro Tull – Locomotive Breath Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Some misunderstandings I see: Old Charlie is an old euphemism for the Devil. The song is about growing old and losing control of one's life, be it from drug abuse or from corporate de-personalization. Locomotive Breath can refer to drug abuse, but it is a reference to the de-personalization of the modern industrial society which treats people as parts of a machine. He is the all-time loser, who has tried and failed to earn the big promotions. "Old Charlie stole the handle" refers to his loss of control over his own life. "Crawling down the corridor" is his struggle to keep going, though crushed by the weight of his failures, be they alcohol related or simply the weariness of age. "The all time winner has got him by the balls" is a reference to the impersonal corporate management that keeps him locked into his position as a broken cog in the corporate machine, a position from which he can only escape by dying. He loses his family and friends in his downward spiral. Gideon's Bible is a reference to the motels he must live in, and when he "opens at page one" he is seeking some salvation from the train-wreck his life has become. The context of this song is the album Aqualung. In the late '60's and early '70's, rock albums were thematic modern operas. This was the age of Godspell, Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The theme of the Aqualung album as a whole was the failures of the modern industrial society. Not the failures of the system, but the people within it, or falling out of it. (Cross-eyed Mary, the sexually abused teen, and Aqualung, the homeless alcoholic are examples of this.) Locomotive Breath is about the corporate worker who never measured up and wound up in a dead in job with a dead end life that consumed him. The central question of the album is, what part does God play in a de-personalized industrial society? The album asks the question, but gives no answer. |
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