Fairies Wear Boots

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“Fairies Wear Boots”
Single by Black Sabbath from the album Paranoid
A-side	Fairies Wear Boots
Released	1970
Format	45 RPM
Recorded	1970
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	6:14(album)
Label	Vertigo
Writer(s)	Iommi, Osbourne, Butler, Ward
Black Sabbath singles chronology
"War Pigs" "Fairies Wear Boots" "Sweet Leaf"

"Fairies Wear Boots" is a Black Sabbath song from their 1970 album Paranoid.

The title is not about homosexuality, and despite rumors, bass player Geezer Butler did not write this song after being assaulted by a gang of skinheads. In the liner notes to the Black Box collection, it was confirmed that the song's origin comes from Ozzy Osbourne getting high and hallucinating that he was seeing fairies wearing boots.^{[citation needed]} The song contains an instrumental at the beginning called "Jack the Stripper", a pun referencing the British serial killer of the 1800s, to whom the media coined the name "Jack the Ripper."

An earlier version of "Fairies Wear Boots", taken from a session for the BBC's John Peel Sunday Show dated 4.26.70, can be found on the bonus disc of the Ozzy Osbourne release The Ozzman Cometh.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cover versions

• American glam rock band Toilet Böys include the song on their EP Sinners and Saints.
• Rose Hill Drive, an American power trio covered "Fairies Wear Boots" at the 2007 Hyde Park Calling festival to huge applause.
• American jam band Widespread Panic has been covering this song during their Summer 2007 tour.