Fairport Convention - Meet On The Ledge

      Richard Thompson escreveu esta canção aos 17 anos. "the ledge" era um local sobre os ramos de uma árvore onde ele se encontrava com os amigos de juventude para compor e partilhar canções. Em inglês, 'ledge' significa 'saliência' e o autor nunca entendeu a razão porque a canção se tornou tão famosa - era normalmente a canção com que os Fairport Convention terminavam os concertos - e porque era cantada em funerais. 

      Numa entrevista à revista Mojo, em março de 2011, Richard Thompson confessou:"The hardest thing about being a 17-year-old songwriter is that you're embarrassed - you're never going to write a song saying, 'These are my feelings, I love you.' So I was trying to find some semi-veiled language that conveyed something to somebody somehow but which didn't really say anything up front. It's a slightly naïve song, a little obscure. I don't even know what it means." Thompson acrescentou: "I had to sing it at my own mother's funeral. It was in her will. That's about the hardest thing I've ever done".

      Thompson, ainda no inicio da carreira (a canção fazia parte do segundo single dos Fairport), não estava seguro das suas capacidades vocais e por essa razão quis que fossem Sandy Denny e Ian Matthews a interpretá-la. Não podia ter feito melhor escolha.

We used to say
That come the day
We'd all be making songs
Or finding better words
These ideas never lasted that long.

The way is up
Along the road
The air is growing thin
Too many friends who tried
Were blown off this mountain with the wind.

  Meet on the ledge
  We're gonna meet on the ledge
  When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends
  Meet on the ledge
  We're gonna meet on the ledge
  If you really mean it, it all comes round again.

Yet now I see
I'm all alone
But that's the only way to be
You'll have your chance again
Then you can do the work for me.

 Os versos sugerem o papel da amizade verdadeira na construção do que permanece.