Fair's Fair
A curiosity in Leon's songbook, this number appears to be a straight-forward celebration of the fairground, with no obvious subtext. To add to its anomaly, it was originally given to Roy Bailey, who recorded it on his album, New Bell Wake (1976) with Leon pitching in with instrumentation. It was not for another forty years that we got to hear Leon's own rendition of the song, with Fiz Shapur handling electronic keyboards in an inventive fairgorund arrangement steeped in calliopes and merry-go-rounds.
The theme of the lyric reminds us of the oldie, "Away From It All", which Leon wrote in the 1960s. Leon has indicated that the song was originally conceived as approving the fun of Hampstead Heath fair, but which evolved into a rather different song during the writing. We can speculate that "Fair's Fair" is an attempt to correct that, and might be somewhere close to how "Away From It All" was first envisaged. An insight into a possible further angle on it can be got from Leon's comment in 2016 that the song could heal a marital rift - maybe it was conceived as a description of a fun night out?
The theme of the lyric reminds us of the oldie, "Away From It All", which Leon wrote in the 1960s. Leon has indicated that the song was originally conceived as approving the fun of Hampstead Heath fair, but which evolved into a rather different song during the writing. We can speculate that "Fair's Fair" is an attempt to correct that, and might be somewhere close to how "Away From It All" was first envisaged. An insight into a possible further angle on it can be got from Leon's comment in 2016 that the song could heal a marital rift - maybe it was conceived as a description of a fun night out?
Recordings
Cover version (1976)
Version 1 (2016)
- New Bell Wake First recording, by Roy Bailey.
Version 1 (2016)
- Where Are The Barricades? Solo version, forty years on.