For this week’s ‘Show’ theme, I was going to use ‘The Music Never Stopped’ by the Grateful Dead, but looking back I saw that I’d already deployed that over three years ago.

So instead I came up with this song by the British group Renaissance – folk-rock favourites of mine back in the early seventies and apparently still touring today (although how many of the original members remain I have no idea). This is from the 1975 album ‘Scheherazade and Other Stories’.

The lyrics refer to something that actually took place – a trip to a fair on Hampstead Heath in London by Renaissance lead singer Annie Haslam and Roy Wood, originally of The Move but now probably best remembered for the awful ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’, a song that’s on continuous repeat in every shopping centre in the country from October onwards.

I took a trip down to look at the fair
When I arrived I found nobody there
It seemed I was all alone
Must be that they’ve all gone home

A trip to the fair but nobody was there
A trip to the fair but nobody was there

Voices of yesterday make not a sound
Even the roundabout stopped going round
I wonder just what it means
Is everything how it seems?

A creak as the dodgems came onto the scene
Wheels began turning I started to scream
A carousel swung around
My head spun and hit the ground

I close my eyes to disguise the fear from inside
Trembling within my own mind I find no place to hide
Stars of tomorrow shine through the grey mist that has gone
I wish that this trip to the fair had never begun

Suddenly thousands of faces I see
Everyone seemed to be staring at me
Clowns laughed in the penny arcade
What was this game my mind played?

I took a trip down to look at the fair
When I arrived I found nobody there
It seemed I was all alone
Must be that they’ve all gone home

A trip to the fair but nobody was there, but nobody was there
A trip to the fair but nobody was there, but nobody was there

Written by Michael Dunford, Betty Thatcher and John Tout

Song Lyric Sunday 2 January 2022