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| "Fairies Wear Boots" | |
|---|---|
| Song byBlack Sabbath | |
| from the albumParanoid | |
| A-side | "After Forever" |
| Released | 18 September 1970 |
| Recorded | 1970 |
| Genre | Heavy metal[1] |
| Length | 6:14 |
| Label | Vertigo |
| Songwriters | |
| Producer | Rodger Bain |
"Fairies Wear Boots" is a song by the Englishheavy metal bandBlack Sabbath, appearing on their 1970 albumParanoid. It was released in 1971 as the B-side to the single "After Forever".
On original 1970 US copies of theParanoid album, the song's intro was listed under the title "Jack the Stripper", formatted as "Jack the Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots".[2]
The song has been ranked the 11th best Black Sabbath song by German author Christoph Rehe.[3]
The exact inspiration behind "Fairies Wear Boots" is unclear. In the 2010 documentary filmClassic Albums: Black Sabbath's Paranoid, the band's bassistGeezer Butler states that Ozzy Osbourne composed the lyrics after a group ofskinheads in London called him a "fairy" because of his long hair. However, Butler also stated Ozzy’s lyrics often went off in random tangents, and the second half of the song was aboutLSD.[4] Osbourne, in the same documentary, said he wrote the lyrics about LSD. In 2010, Osbourne stated in his autobiographyI Am Ozzy that he did not recall what the song was written about.
A live version of "Fairies Wear Boots", taken from a session for theBBC'sJohn PeelSunday Show dated April 26, 1970, is featured on the bonus disc of a 1997 Ozzy Osbourne compilation entitledThe Ozzman Cometh. The song also appears on the Black Sabbath's first compilation album,We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll.
Osbourne released a live rendition of the song on his 1982 solo albumSpeak of the Devil.
