Lather

Words & Music:

Jefferson Airplane

 

Thanks to songhound Jessica Burris for correcting the lyrics to this song.  I thought I was the only fan of this tune!

 

Cm         Eb       Bb              Gm        F          Cm

Lather was 30 years old today, they took away all of his toys.

    Cm          Eb        Bb

His mother sent newspaper clippings to him

          Gm                F             Cm

About his old friends who'd stopped being boys (paper dolls!).

          Gm        F           Ab               Eb            Bb           F

There was Howard C. Green, just turned 33 -- his leather chair waits at the bank.

    Gm           F       Ab                Eb          Bb       F

And Sergeant Dow Jones, 27 years old -- commanding his very own tank.

    Eb           F          Gm                  Eb        F           Gm

But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do to lie about nude in the sand

       Eb          F              Gm                  F                          Cm

Drawing pictures of mountains that looked like bumps & thrashing the air with his hands.

    C                      Bb                        C         Bb        C

But wait, old Lather's productive, you know -- he produces the finest of sounds.

Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose, snorting the best licks in town.

 

Cm        Eb         Bb     Cm

Gm                 Cm

But that's all over.  (Child!)

 

Lather was 30 years old today & Lather came foam from his tongue.

He looked at me, eyes wide, & plainly say, "Is it true that I'm no longer young?" (Mommy?)

And the children call him famous -- what the old men call insane.

        Gm    F           Ab              Eb         Bb      F

And sometimes he's so nameless, he hardly knows what game to play,

     Cm

What words to say.

      Eb          F          Gm

And I should have told him, "No, you're not old."

      Eb          F          Gm    F        Gm      Cm    Gm    G

And I should have let him go on--- smiling very wide.