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Jethro Tull — Cross Eyed Mary
Album: Aqualung
Avg rating:
7.4

Your rating:
Total ratings: 315









Released: 1971
Length: 4:05
Plays (last 30 days): 0
Who would be a poor man
A beggar man, a thief
If he had a rich man in his hand?
And who would steal the candy
From a laughing baby's mouth
If he could take it from the money man?

Cross-eyed Mary goes jumping in again
She signs no contract
But she always plays the game
She dines in Hampstead village
On expense accounted gruel
And the jack-knife barber drops her off at school

Hey, laughing in the playground
Gets no kicks from little boys
Would rather make it with a letching gray, yeah
Or maybe her attention is drawn by Aqualung
Who watches through the railings as they play

Hey, cross-eyed Mary finds it hard to get along
She's a poor man's rich girl and she'll do it for a song
She's a rich man stealer but her favour's good and strong
She's the Robin Hood of Highgate
Helps the poor man get along, hey

Laughing in the playground
Gets no kicks from little boys
Would rather make it with a letching gray, yeah
Or maybe her attention is drawn by Aqualung
Who watches through the railings as they play

Cross-eyed Mary goes jumping in again
She signs no contract
But she always plays the game
She dines in Hampstead village
On expense accounted gruel
And the jack-knife barber drops her off at school

Hey, cross-eyed Mary, oh baby, oh, cross-eyed Mary
Comments (19)add comment
From Garbage to Tull in one leap? Brave choice sir!
 jgriffin56 wrote:
Rock and Roll flute, oh how we miss thee.

 
Ah, the 1970s...fun song.
'70s 
I adore Jethro Tull, but for some reason cannot stand this song.
Well, if I don't get a daily dose of Tull, I'm switching off RP, so there :-)

Bring it on, I say.
 
 hugogdt wrote:
LAtelly I hear Jethro Tull at least once a day in RP, and this is getting exhausting to my ears!!

 
Well, criminey....he's only got about 2,000 tunes recorded....likely in the top 10 of rock 'n roll in pure volume of material. And 1 a day is too much? Good freakin' grief....talk about ADD :^ /
 hugogdt wrote:
LAtelly I hear Jethro Tull at least once a day in RP, and this is getting exhausting to my ears!!

 
Agreed.  A daily shot is unnecessary.
Some Tull I like.  Not this. 
Anderson is trying to hard to drive the song with his vocals, which he could never pull off very well.
He's got great pipes when he doesn't force it.  Aqualung for example.
 Goonzilla wrote:
Pure shite.

 
Which is so much better than impure shite, right?
 scrubbrush wrote:
Hearing this three songs after Black Sabbath Paranoid - my cube just turned into my college dorm room.

  

No Sh#t eh.  Im ready to throw one back but it's time for bed :/


LAtelly I hear Jethro Tull at least once a day in RP, and this is getting exhausting to my ears!!
 Goonzilla wrote:
Pure shite.

 
Too bad for you.
Rock and Roll flute, oh how we miss thee.
 
Hearing this three songs after Black Sabbath Paranoid - my cube just turned into my college dorm room.
 thewiseking wrote:

ya lost us on Grand Funk

 

{#Roflol}


Pure shite.
 oldman wrote:
back in the day, this was one of the songs that convinced the parents in the neighborhood that Tull was "hard rock" along with Santana and of course Zep, and yeah Grand Funk
forbidden was of course Black Sabbath 
Zappa they just didn't understand
As a result I was never able to condemn what my kids listened to in their teens.
standards shift with the times 

 
ya lost us on Grand Funk
 oldman wrote:
back in the day, this was one of the songs that convinced the parents in the neighborhood that Tull was "hard rock" along with Santana and of course Zep, and yeah Grand Funk
forbidden was of course Black Sabbath 
Zappa they just didn't understand
As a result I was never able to condemn what my kids listened to in their teens.
standards shift with the times 

 

Early on in my childhood, with my burgeoning devotion to listening to rock already established,  my mom labeled it as a "fad."
(did not understand Zappa — {#Lol} )

  
One of Rocks great ALBUMS. Sure there are brilliant individual songs but it really needs to be listened to in its entirety. I always preferred their pure Rock and Roll albums (This Was and Benefit) but they really peaked thematically here. 
back in the day, this was one of the songs that convinced the parents in the neighborhood that Tull was "hard rock" along with Santana and of course Zep, and yeah Grand Funk
forbidden was of course Black Sabbath 
Zappa they just didn't understand
As a result I was never able to condemn what my kids listened to in their teens.
standards shift with the times 
Could have sworn this got played a day or two ago...perhaps only as a PSD alternative. This used to get played all the time back in the day on FM radio. Good to hear after a hiatus of a decade or two!