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Meet on the Ledge

[Richard Thompson]

In the original version of this song, released in January 1969 on What We Did on Our Holidays and later on The History of Fairport Convention and on the double CD compilation Meet on the Ledge: The Classic Years 1967-1975, Ian Matthews sings two verses, and Sandy sings one and plays piano. This version also appears on the Island samplers You Can All Join in, Nice Enough to Join in, and Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, and was released as a single Meet on the Ledge / Throwaway Street Puzzle. In 2004, it was added to Fledg’ling’s 5CD Sandy Denny anthology A Boxful of Treasures.

A BBC radio version from the Stuart Henry Show of 2 December 1968 is on the semi-bootleg From Past Archives and on the Heyday cassette but not on the Heyday CDs. However, it was finally released in 2002 on the Fairport unConventioNal 4CD set. Three other versions from the “Night Ride” radio programme on 25 November 1968, the “Top Gear” session on 9 December 1968 and the BBC 1 TV programme “How It Is” on 13 December 1968 are not available.

Fairport recorded a version of this on their 1979 live album Farewell, Farewell, where Simon Nicol takes the lead vocal. This is not one of the best versions of this song.

In later years, this song became the theme tune of Fairport, being played at the end of every Cropredy festival, e.g. on the cassette The Boot - 1983 Fairport Reunion. A 1987 studio recording with Simon Nicol on lead vocals was issued as the single Meet on the Ledge and was included on the “live-in-the-studio” LP In Real Time.

The original version is played over the closing credits of the video It All Comes ’Round Again, whose title is of course derived from this song. It also lent its name to the Friends of Fairport fan magazine, “The Ledge”.

Richard Thompson also recorded Meet on the Ledge in 1982 on his live LP Small Town Romance.

Lyrics

Please find the lyrics for this song at Richard Thompson’s website.