The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey, Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, oh, Aqualung
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
When the ice that clings on to your beard
It was screaming agony
Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Sitting on a park bench
Eying up little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, hey Aqualung
Oh Aqualung
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey, Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, oh, Aqualung
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
When the ice that clings on to your beard
It was screaming agony
Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Sitting on a park bench
Eying up little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, hey Aqualung
Oh Aqualung
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Yes, a song about an indigent soul has made a rock legend. In fact the singer(who's FIRST wife who wrote the song) felt he had to instill even more meaning to it's simple theme of "a bum who dies" by portraying himself, Ian Anderson as the bum on stage or video. On stage he'd say things like "you poor ol sod you see it's only, a me......" A powerful image of the poor destitute homeless man woven throughout many of the bands commercial offerings. But you see, his FIRST wife made the song work to the teenage adolescent types with "snot is running down his nose, greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes...." At that time, snot was as bad as Slip Knot today. ga
@ganthony1 I once witnessed a compassionate Christian colleague (who I went to lunch with one afternoon) buy a pizza for an elderly begging homeless guy in an olive green army surplus jacket. This unfortunate chap stood in line at the counter with yellow-green snot oozing out all over his bushy gray mustache when ordering his food, and I felt the deepest regret for my inability to right this collective wrong.<br /> <br /> Homeless people are typically exposed to the elements, disheveled, dirty, smelly, and often visibly ill and/or lame, sometimes using mobility props or wheelchair-bound, covered in degenerative diabetic wounds or contagious/infectious/insect sores etc. from medical neglect.<br /> <br /> The depiction of Aqualung in the song is brutally accurate and has nothing to do with appealing to thrill-seeking teens. Anderson wrote raw lyrics that strike deep into the soul with penetrating honesty, and his target audience for marvelously broad-minded baroque-loving classical jazz rock folk fusion synthesis is artistic intellectuals like himself that bore easily and want to suck the marrow of life to become one with the universe while revealing all of its dirty secrets to/about everyone regardless if they understand or appreciate his efforts to mix it all up and paint it on like plaster.<br /> <br /> Anderson was capturing the sense of disgust at the sight of homeless people that is triggered in right-wing germophobic OCD people of means who lack empathy. It snot about marketing albums to kids lol but it could have that effect in thrill-seeking kids who aren’t educated or sophisticated enough to appreciate the deeper meaning. For example, when I first heard this song and eventually bought the album as a teen, I had zero experience with homeless people, and I had to muster some imaginative effort to relate and understand the lyrics. It wasn’t vulgar fascination but it wasn’t penetrating insight that I exhibited either. I had just about zero experience with popular rock music and even less with intellectual poetic fusion that was making the rounds. My fascination was with the rawness and complexity of it, not the disgust it evoked.