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Up To Me Lyrics

Take you to the cinema
and leave you in a Wimpy Bar --
you tell me that we've gone to far --
come running up to me.
Make the scene at Cousin Jack's --
leave him put the bottles back --
mends his glasses that I cracked --
well that one's up to me.
Buy a silver cloud to ride --
pack the tennis club inside --
trouser cuffs hung far too wide --
well it was up to me.
Tyres down on your bicicle --
your nose feels like an icicle --
the yellow fingered smoky girl
is looking up to me.
Well I'm a common working man
with a half of bitter -- bread and jam
and if it pleases me I'll put one on you man --
when the copper fades away.
The rainy season comes to pass --
the day-glo pirate sinks at last --
and if I laughed a bit to fast.
Well it was up to me.
17 Meanings

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Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

Actually, Anomaly57 , it's completely the opposite - Everything he does is his decision - no predestination, no invisible friend to blame things on or ask forgiveness from. It's up to ME what I do, my responsibility and my mistakes.

@AlanOldie Exactly!

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

i love this song.

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

I think that, keeping with the overall theme of the album, this song is about blaming your mistakes and problems on God. "me" in the song i think is god. After you got wasted in a bar, punched out your cousin, you would go to god for forgiveness. It could also be about a guy who always comes running to his friend for help. And eventually the friend just gets sick of it and laughs at the guy's mistakes. Pretty good song though.

@Anomaly57 Cousin Jack's is a food chain just like Wimpy Bar was

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

Well, when I heart it for the first time when it was new, it was one of the ones that spoke to me, though I couldn't make out all the things it said.

One thing I liked was the attention grabbing flute work contrasting to the plain speaking in the lines (even when the a phrase was a biblical one like 'comes to pass').

Been pondering Anomaly57 thoughts about how the speaker was God. Maybe, though the use of "we" at first, and the "Now Im a common working man..." stanza belies it.

No, I think the singer is just a young man beginning to realize how, unlike when he was younger, it is virtually all up to him, even the things that aren't -- to fascinate a girl, to accidently damage his cousin's glasses in a row, to wear his pants the way he likes, and if he has had a few and doesn't like your face, to try and change it.

He definetly likes it all being up to him.

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

I'd never heard of a "Wimpy Bar" before, not being from the UK. Luckily Wikipedia came to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimpy_%28restaurant%29

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

A Silver Cloud is a Rolls-Royce car. Here is another Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Silver_Cloud

@froggyziffle Sure, that's easy, but what's he saying here?

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

Not as much as I do!

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

I don't get it.

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

I hadn't thought of that Anomal57, but it seems likely to me.

Great song, great album, great band (one of only two bands to have scored a 5 star album with me, not to say that I don't like much music, just that I have high standards).

Of course, that 5 star album is Thick as a Brick.

Cover art for Up To Me lyrics by Jethro Tull

I don't really have an exegesis for this song yet, but isn't "Cousin Jack" a reference to a person from Cornwall? A cornish miner?

@waynecullinan it's a food chain.

 
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