...And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps Lyrics
swishing through the rye grass
with thoughts of mouse-and-apple pie.
Tail balancing at half-mast.
...And the mouse police never sleeps ---
lying in the cherry tree.
Savage bed foot-warmer of purest feline ancestry.
Look out, little furry folk!
He's the all-night working cat.
Eats but one in every ten ---
leaves the others on the mat.
...And the mouse police never sleeps ---
waiting by the cellar door.
Window-box town crier;
birth and death registrar.
With claws that rake a furrow red ---
licensed to multilate.
From warm milk on a lazy day
to dawn patrol on hungry hate.
...No, the mouse police never sleeps ---
climbing on the ivy.
Windy roof-top weathercock.
Warm-blooded night on a cold tile.
MORE PPL SHOULD COMMENT ON J TULL SONGS. IAN ANDERSON IS A LYRICAL GENIUS, ANBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME CAN F*** ME SIDEWAYS :P
I definitely AGREE.
I definitely AGREE.
This song that brilliantly opens the album -capturing the muscular, rustic feel of the Heavy Horses. It also briefly references the album's final song, Weathercock. I think it's Ian first song about cats (his last album has two songs about the little critters).
@offhand agreed. This is the first song I remember Jethro Tull doing that celebrates the hunting instincts of cats. Awesome song. Ian Anderson reveals alot about this song in the Heavy Horses 40th Anniversary set: New Shoes Edition.
@offhand agreed. This is the first song I remember Jethro Tull doing that celebrates the hunting instincts of cats. Awesome song. Ian Anderson reveals alot about this song in the Heavy Horses 40th Anniversary set: New Shoes Edition.
Per Ian Anderson within the Heavy Horses 40th Anniversary Set: New Shoes Edition "this is a song about the hunting instincts of cats, and is a celebration in spite of the fact they\'re pretty vicious as killers of birds, snakes and other wildlife..." he writes of his young kitten Mistletoe who got credited on the album as a cat that would go hunting with him on his shoulder and acted like a gun-dog. There was a symbiotic relationship during their mutual hunts.
the line "Window-box town crier;" reminds me of observing my own cat when chipmunks or birds come on our deck and he watches from our sliding glass door as he makes instinctual sounds indicating he is powerless to do anything unless the slider is opened so he can pursue now. \n\nthe line "warm-blooded night on a cold tile." suggests Ian is comparing their actions to hunters that wait on a tree stand in the cold for prey.
Sounds like a lovely song. I really have to get Heavy Horses when I stumble upon it:).
In Jack-a-Lynn he makes a reference to this: "Cole black cats in policeman's hats. Nosing where the mice have been".
I always thought that the cat was looking for the police-mice. That the roles had been switched.