news
discography
songs
tours
videos
people
family tree
timeline
press releases
reviews
faq
mailing list
fanzines
site map
links
about
contact

here comes the fool


composers
Kerr, Burchill


publisher
Copyright Control


background
Here Comes The Fool was written during the Life In A Day tour and shared opening duties with another new composition called Scar. It may have been written during a two week break in May 1979 after the Magazine support tour and their own outing as headliners.

The first known performance was at the Fforde Green Hotel, Leeds on the 29th July. It's likey they were playing the song before then, but recordings either don't exist or have yet to surface.

It was a trademark post-Life In A Day song: fast, furious and heavily reliant on Mick MacNeil's quick playing. Apparently it started off life as a pastiche of The Stranglers.

It gained enough traction to be recorded during a session for Piccadilly Radio 261 in June 1979 while the band were promoting Chelsea Girl. The session version was slower with an extended guitar intro. As Simple Minds used sessions as demo sessions, then it's possible that this was the direction the song was going to take for formal recording. But they reverted to the original live version for their penultimate show of the Life In A Day tour at the Paris Theatre, London on the 8th August 1979.

It's believed the band formally recorded Here Comes The Fool during the Real To Real Cacophony sessions. Tape listings and multi-track box annotations are sometimes incorrect, but the paper trail suggests Simple Minds recorded Here Comes The Fool at Rockfield on the 1st September 1979. If the records are correct then they recorded four takes of the song across two multitrack tapes under the new title of Round And Round. And there the trail goes cold. It appears it was never taken forward or mixed during the sessions.

(Four takes for a multitrack is high - they normally only recorded one or two takes before starting a mix. So this makes me suspicious.I suspect the tape was physically moved from one reel to the other, the boxes weren't updated correctly and so in reality there are only two takes).

Despite not being finished during the Real To Real Cacophony sessions, the song remained a live favourite, and was a staple of the set-list during the Real To Real Cacophony tour. It wasn't revisited during the Empires And Dance sessions and was then pushed out of future set-lists by new songs.

The Paris Theatre recording was formally released on Silver Box. To date, this has been the only official release of the song.


see also:
Round And Round


lyrics
The lyrics have never been published.



discography
Live Version (8th Sep 1979) (4:32)
Recorded: Paris Theatre, London, UK
Mastered by: Simon Heyworth

Silver Box Promo CDR #1 Silver Box




sessions
Piccadilly Radio 261: 7th June 1979



live history
Life In A Day Tour: 1979
Real To Real Cacophony Tour: 1979-1980