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Songs for City Squares and Sceptical Circles (songbook)
1966, Harmony Music
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This very rare 34-page stapled songbook was issued in 1966, by Leon's main publisher at the time, Harmony Music, in partnership with Sing Productions, apparently the company behind the folk magazine, Sing.
At this point Leon's solo discography consisted of Songs For City Squares and Songs For Sceptical Circles, which together gave it its title. Besides these two records he had also penned a few songs on the Vote For Us LP and the Three City Four's first album, giving him a compositional output of around 25 songs by this stage.
This first songbook rounds up 22 of them, including two not previously heard on disc: "I Dreamed I Was Walking Alone", which would shortly be recorded by the group, and "Talking Sir Alec", which never made it to vinyl. Missing from his recorded catalogue are "The Ugly Ones" and "It's a Vile Violation" plus the original material on Vote For Us.
This songbook has tended to be overlooked, and Leon seems not to even count it in his sheet music output. For example, in the introduction to Bringing The News From Nowhere (1992), he makes reference to, “my first collection of songs, ‘Look Here’...” - which was in fact a later volume than this one. To our knowledge he has never publicly mentioned Songs For City Squares And Sceptical Circles, although it was listed in another of his songbooks, That's Not The Way It's Got To Be, where it was marked "out of print".
At this point Leon's solo discography consisted of Songs For City Squares and Songs For Sceptical Circles, which together gave it its title. Besides these two records he had also penned a few songs on the Vote For Us LP and the Three City Four's first album, giving him a compositional output of around 25 songs by this stage.
This first songbook rounds up 22 of them, including two not previously heard on disc: "I Dreamed I Was Walking Alone", which would shortly be recorded by the group, and "Talking Sir Alec", which never made it to vinyl. Missing from his recorded catalogue are "The Ugly Ones" and "It's a Vile Violation" plus the original material on Vote For Us.
This songbook has tended to be overlooked, and Leon seems not to even count it in his sheet music output. For example, in the introduction to Bringing The News From Nowhere (1992), he makes reference to, “my first collection of songs, ‘Look Here’...” - which was in fact a later volume than this one. To our knowledge he has never publicly mentioned Songs For City Squares And Sceptical Circles, although it was listed in another of his songbooks, That's Not The Way It's Got To Be, where it was marked "out of print".
"Leon's new book Look Here, (Essex Music, 10s. 6d.) is a collection of his finest songs. There is no need to tell Rosselson fans to buy it — his first book Songs for City Squares and Sceptical Circles (Essex Music, in conjunction with Sing magazine, 5s.) is already a virtual sell-out." - Melody Maker, 13 July 1968
