A Soapbox Opera - Live At Pavillon de Paris/1979

Supertramp had a songwriting arrangement much like the Beatles' Lennon and McCartney. Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies were always credited as the writers, but they did most of their writing separately, with only one of them contributing the majority of each song, and whoever did the bulk of the writing usually sang it. Hodgson wrote most of their big hits ("Give A Little Bit," "The Logical Song") and on this one, "A Soapbox Opera." Hodgson's songs were about searching for meaning, especially for religion and God. "A Soapbox Opera" appears to question the Catholic view of the deity from Hodgson's perspective. Rather than a truth, their reasons create questions that come in his mind suggesting both the Fathers and the Sisters are wrong.

The 2002 remastered release of Crisis What Crisis? includes lyrics, which where unavailable in the original 1975 release. However, for this song they are wrong. The correct lyrics can be found in the Crisis, What Crisis? songbook, (Almo publications VF4028, 1976), which are the ones used here.