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Sossity, You're a Woman Lyrics
Hello you straight-laced lady,
dressed in white but your shoes aren't clean.
Painted them up with polish
in the hope we can't see where you've been.
The smiling face that you've worn
to greet me rising at morning --
sent me out to work for my score.
Please me and say what it's for.
Give me the straight-laced promise
and not the pathetic lie.
Tie me down with your ribbons
and sulk when I ask you why.
Your Sunday paper voice cries
demanding truths I deny.
The bitter-sweet kiss you pretended
is offered, our affair mended.
Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.
All of the tears you're wasting
are for yourself and not for me.
It's sad to know you're aging
Sadder still to admit I'm free.
Your immature physical toy has grown,
too young to enjoy at last your straight-laced agreement:
woman, you were too old for me.
Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.
dressed in white but your shoes aren't clean.
Painted them up with polish
in the hope we can't see where you've been.
The smiling face that you've worn
to greet me rising at morning --
sent me out to work for my score.
Please me and say what it's for.
Give me the straight-laced promise
and not the pathetic lie.
Tie me down with your ribbons
and sulk when I ask you why.
Your Sunday paper voice cries
demanding truths I deny.
The bitter-sweet kiss you pretended
is offered, our affair mended.
Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.
All of the tears you're wasting
are for yourself and not for me.
It's sad to know you're aging
Sadder still to admit I'm free.
Your immature physical toy has grown,
too young to enjoy at last your straight-laced agreement:
woman, you were too old for me.
Sossity: You're a woman.
Society: You're a woman.
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It's not really about a woman at all, he's damning Society with this song. He's saying that the whole of Society is a messed up old bitch that clings to him and tries to control him, and just pointlessly restricts him. He says Society is too old for him. He's pretty much right. Individuals when alone are hopeless and terrified. But when they band together as a mob or a Society, they become a scary monster. Or maybe just a nasty old witch. Anyways, we all need to be part of Society, but secretly none of us like it. Ian just walks away from it, he finds it useless.
Sossity is a play on word of society. Tull's guitarist Martin Barre made thought the same mistake, and m bought a boat and named it Sossity. After Ian told Barre him the actual meaning, he sold the boat!
In the 2013 reissue of Benefit, Ian Anderson wrote in the liner notes: "This obviously is written as a double-meaning where I'm notionally talking about an imaginary girl in frankly a rather thin and embarrassing pun... I suppose what I was referring to was a view of rather affluent if not upper class society, and I suppose a bit of disdain that I might have felt for people who would display wealth and authority without having earned it. I mean, I'm a leftie at heart...
Makes me think of Hamlet's screed, "Frailty, thy name is woman. What a contrast of tone and sense of the nature of femaile comanion to that of Inside. Is Sossity a common name or nickname in Great Britain?