Sealion - Jethro Tull

Over the mountains, and under the sky

Riding dirty gray horses, go you and I

Mating with chance, copulating with mirth

The sad-glad paymasters (for what it’s worth)

The ice-cream castles are refrigerated;

The super-marketeers are on parade

There’s a golden handshake hanging round your neck

As you light your cigarette on the burning deck

And you balance your world on the tip of your nose

Like a Sealion with a ball, at the carnival

You wear a shiny skin and a funny hat

The Almighty Animal Trainer lets it go at that

You bark ever-so-slightly at the Trainer’s gun

With you whiskers melting in the noon-day sun

You flip and you flop under the Big White Top

Where the long-legged ring-mistress starts and stops

But you know, after all, the act is wearing thin

As the crowd grows uneasy and the boos begin

But you balance your world on the tip of your nose

You’re a Sealion with a ball at the carnival

Just a trace of pride upon our fixed grins

For there is no business like the show we’re in

There is no reason, no rhyme, no right

To leave the circus 'til we’ve said good-night

The same performance, in the same old way;

It’s the same old story to this Passion Play

So we’ll shoot the moon, and hope to call the tune

And make no pin cushion of this big balloon

Look how we balance the world on the tips of our noses

Like Sealions with a ball at the carnival