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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 going
No way to slow down
Oh, oh
He sees his children jumping off
At stations one by one
His woman and his best friend
In bed an' 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
Yeah, yeah
He hears the silence howling
And 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 thank 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
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 going
No way to slow down
Oh, oh
He sees his children jumping off
At stations one by one
His woman and his best friend
In bed an' 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
Yeah, yeah
He hears the silence howling
And 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 thank 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
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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.
Some guy catches his wife cheating on him with his best friend, so he 'stole the handle' (i.e. - the brake) of a train in a suicidal fit. The 'children jumping off' are, of course, people leaping from the train trying to save themselves.
After hearing more Jethro Tull, I'm 99% sure there is a deeper meaning (as told in other comments), but whenever I hear it I always have these literal scenes playing out in my head.
But very interesting how knowing the context can completely change the interpretation. Free to interpret without that context yields some pretty interesting ideas that are almost certainly just not so.
I've got a very different take on this song I'd like to put out there. It's drawn from a lot of your ideas and I think it doesn't take a whole lot of deeper metaphor to make it fit. You be the judge!
I don't think the protagonist here is Charlie. Rather, Charlie is the guy who has our protagonist (hereafter, me) steaming. Not just-lost-a-poker hand steaming, more like bugs-bunny-mushroom-cloud fire-breathing steaming with a side of acute depression.
On to the lyrics:
I'm so hot about some incident I'm breathing locomotive breath. And I'm flipping out.
I'm always losing, bad things always happen to me and this time it's going to be the end of me.
This thing that Charlie did is so heinous, I can't believe this, I can't believe that, my thoughts are like a searing screeching piston that brings pain with each round and round.
I've lost my "grip" on reality. It's Charlie's fault, now I'm spiraling to my end because Charlie stole the handle to my grip on life. Without that handle, nothing is worth living for.
Adultery AND Deception AND Betrayal!
I'm taking baby-steps to the end, I'm broken, I've got tunnel-vision, I'm gonna end it.
How could Charlie do this to me??? I can't stop it, I've gotta end it. I'm gonna do it...
[crazy mind-bending flute solo, our man is loo-pee]
This hotel room (the only place you can go when you catch your best friend in bed with your wife) is silent but my head's racing a mile-a-minute. Charlie always gets what he wants, now he's taken everything from me! Maybe the book in the nightstand has some answer for me. I'm starting from the beginning, never read it before. Too long! And what for! God let this happen, or [Damn-it. He, Charlie, stole my handle]. How can this be happening! I'm done, a real gonner.
I'm gonna do it...
I'm gonna do it...
Holes:
Two things that need a little work for this interpretation...
"He sees his children jumping off at the stations one by one"... not so easy, but maybe he is making peace with the loss his children will feel if he continues down this path. One by one, he see's them off in his mind. Maybe worse, they have abandoned him but I don't think that's the case, because they'd have no reason to be on this "train". At first glance, the first guess seems anachronistic, coming in stanza two where the author drops the bomb, but each line of this stanza looks like a thought, one of those screeching-piston-pounding-thoughts.
"catches angels as they fall"... not easy for me, I'm still on page one. Or at least chapter one, I did read Genesis before I set it down. But it sounds like he's catching glimmers of hope as he sits alone, mind racing, angry and dejected, perhaps with gun in hand. Or maybe it is indeed a biblical reference to bad angels lighting on his person, adding murder-death-mayhem and what other diseases fallen angels bring.
Tell me what you think or add to it!
it is right the way it is
(God he stole the handle...)