More personal than most of my songs. But I was very young... Vocal needs re-recording, but using a different guitar produced some interesting variations on the accompaniment.

Ten Percent Blues

Another Bangor Day [demo]

A version in preparation for an album: both guitars here are a Taylor T5Z. Words & music (c) David A. Harley

Butterfly (Over the Hill)

My setting of a poem written in the 18th century (probably) about the Arbor Tree in Aston-Upon-Clun. There's a lot more about it in my blog article here - https://whealalice.com/2019/03/05/ballad-of-the-arbor-tree-rough-demo/ - but this is more or less the version that eventually made it onto my 'Tears of Morning' album here: https://davidaharley.bandcamp.com/album/tears-of-morning-2

Ballad Of The Arbor Tree (mastered)

Track from an upcoming album. Words & music (c) David Harley.

A song which has been nagging at me for several years, since we first knew that we were moving to the area.

Close to where I stand on Trecrobben
Pilgrims walk St. Michael’s Way
Few today reach Santiago
Most will cease their journey at the Bay
The Mount is rising from the distant water
Yet barely seems an arm’s length away

Causley on the road to Marazion
Dreamed of one last summer in the Med
Sheets are dancing Morris in the wind
A buzzard slowly circles overhead
Engine houses march along the skyline
A sea fret daubs the coast in brown and red

Beyond the darkening horizons
Beyond the hills to the West
Beyond Pendeen and Cape Cornwall
The Longships founder off Lands End
Sea nymphs and mermaids pluck the heartstrings
But the bells no longer ring in Lyonesse

Around me march the ghosts of long-dead armies
Recalled among these ancient stones
The engine house beyond the farm
Still offers shelter to the crows
I watch the sun sink slowly to the West
Back into the sea from whence it rose

Notes:

Trecrobben (or Trecobben) is an alternative name for Trencrom Hill and the giant who is supposed to have lived there and passed the time by throwing stones at his counterpart Cormoran on St. Michael’s Mount, which can clearly be seen from the top of the hill (weather permitting).

The St. Michael’s Way is part of the network of pilgrim’s paths that converge on the pilgrim route that leads to St. James Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. It’s believed that pilgrims and missionaries from Wales and Ireland would land at Lelant and walk overland to Marazion rather than risk sailing/rowing around Lands End.

The second verse refers to Charles Causley’s ‘The Seasons In North Cornwall’ where he talks of meeting ‘Old Summer’ on the road to Marazion.

Living around Trencrom, we’ve had lots of time to observe that the horizon is often obscured by low-lying red-brown cloud, especially when pollution levels are high.

The Longships are a series of islets a mile or so off Lands End, known for the lighthouse on Carn Bras. In Arthurian legend, the kingdom of Lyonesse was said to have bordered Cornwall but to have sunk beneath the waves between Lands End and the Scillies. Walter de la Mere’s ‘Sunk Lyonesse’ refers to Nereids playing lyres in “sea-cold Lyonesse”, while the Mermaid of Zennor has her own place in Penwith mythology.

There is a plaque on the Iron Age fort at the top of Trencrom that reads:

“This property was presented to the National Trust by Lt Col C L Tyringham, of Trevethoe in March 1946 & at his wish is to be regarded as a memorial to the men and women of Cornwall, who gave their lives in the service of their country during the two world wars. 1914 – 1918, 1939 – 1945”

There are a good many engine houses in the area, but the one beyond Trencrom Farm is the one variously known as Wheal Alice and Wheal Foxes, part of the former Trencrom Mine.

Strictly Off The Record

Cornish Ghosts

A quasi-classical improvisation: unusually for me, played on my Yamaha electro-classic. Will shortly (hopefully) appear as a single on streaming services, by way of a taster for a forthcoming compilation of (mostly guitar) instrumentals and parallel music-and-poetry project. .

Back In Free Fall

Back in Freefall

There's now a better mix on my album 'The Game of London': https://davidaharley.bandcamp.com/track/london-1983-heatwave 

Also available from the usual streaming sources: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/davidharley/further-off-the-record 

Words and Music by David Harley [All Rights Reserved]

There’s a heatwave in the city and the day drags on forever
The tarmac burns through patent leather
Clear through to the sole
Ice tumbles through glass as the temperature soars
And the day-shift leaves the night-shift to take over for a while

The city sings at midnight to the well-fed and the civilized
While waiters mop their faces in the kitchen, out of sight
Small change pours in torrents over counters in the bistros
And the moon hangs red and sullen in the dustbowl of the sky

The city is on heat, bare-legged girls in summer dresses
Dodge the lechery of workmen laying cable through the day
But the night turns on the body to sweet pornography
Passions feed on darkness and the body mutes the mind

The city squeals at midnight in its pain and ecstasy
The life-force surges through the veins and soaks the sheets
The couples claw and couple and feed upon each other
And still the hunger rages through the streets

I saw a refugee from Galway with a faceful of stubble
Singing sentimental songs in the underground today
He’s going back to Mother Ireland and the Mountains of Mourne
And he only needs a bob or two to help him on his way

The city whimpers at midnight in its apathy and squalor
From a bench on the Embankment, from a derry in Barnes
From a squat in Deptford, from the winos and the junkies
From the homeless and the helpless, the hopeless and the lost

A refugee from Calvary is preaching anarchy and anger
Through his 40 Megawatt PA
And when the concert’s over he packs his guitars and prophecies
And goes back to his hotel to drink the night into the day

But out there in the streets the word is out all over
The heat are out for action in New Cross and Ladbroke Grove
The temperature is dropping but the tempers are at flashpoint
And no-one lingers on street corners if they’re walking home alone

The city screams at midnight in the agony of anger
The rocksteady revolution pays its homage to its dead
Where dreadlocks meet deadlock the shock tears up the flagstones
And on their righteous anger the riot squads are fed

The Klan charts fiery crosses cloistered in an upstairs room
The architects of reaction spin their bitter webs
Entangling and exploiting the kids with skinhead hairstyles
And no-one dares explain the chaos in their heads

(This half-verse won't be in the final version)
[A Pakistani youth lies bleeding in the gutter
A Jamaican girl is raped behind a dockyard wall
Black and white scrawl their frustrations in blood across the charge-sheets
A copper clutches at his stomach where a flick-knife said it all]

The city burns at midnight and the blood runs down the sewers
In the ghettoes and the side-streets where the patriots have been
Squad cars and an ambulance cut through the aftermath
And tomorrow’s front pages unfurl to set the scene

David Harley: Vocal, acoustic guitar, banjo, electric lead guitar, 5-string banjo
James Bolam (no, not that James Bolam!): piano
Engineer Steve Hall

More information at http://davidharleysongs.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/heatwave/

Heatwave In The City (London 1983)

Hands of the Craftsman (Words and Music by David Harley)

Minutes ago as God measures time
Something manlike emerged from the primeval slime:
Ever since, Mother Nature has been on the run
From a hand with four fingers and opposable thumb.
That hand learned to grip, then it learned to shape
Flint into a weapon, then a tool to shape,
To build and to kill, and around then it learned
To strike sparks to bring fire and lighten man’s world.


The hands of the craftsman have moulded our world
From the first stone axe to the first steam drill
To the harvester, laser, and silicon chip,
But the hands of the craftsman are losing their grip.

The years roll on swift with the birth of the wheel:
Man learned to work bronze, then iron and steel:
The bow drill, the pole lathe, the compass, the lock;
The lens, the sextant, the lantern, the clock,
Castings and mouldings, extrusions and pressings,
The bandsaw, the dropforge, the milling machine.
The tools and the skills have changed through the centuries,
The crafts and the knowledge, but seldom the dreams.

The builder could turn his hand to most trades:
Masonry, joinery, plumbing and all.
The engineer trained on a score of machines:
Now it’s often just one – he’s in luck if it’s more.
Modular programming’s the name of the game:
It means that they put you on just one machine,
One or two operations on just the one part -
It’s efficient, but de-skilling’s what it means.

One day we’re skilled men, the next, operators,
The next, no-one knows if we’ll be there at all.
The art passes into the programmer’s hands:
Tomorrow, machines will service themselves…
The glazier, the bellfounder, printers and knappers,
Dyers and weavers, some are already lost:
Prefabrication will see out the tiler
As the thatcher before him learned to his cost.

The paviour, the saddler, the cooper, the wheelwright,
Fitters and grinders and turners and smiths,
We all take our turn in the pattern of process
And one by one, we’re taking our leave…

Written in the early 1980s for the review ‘Nice (if you can get it’, directed by Margaret Ford. At the time I was, myself, a wood machinist. By 1986 I was in the first stages of becoming an IT professional. I guess I proved my own point…

David Harley: vocals, acoustic guitars
Written for the review 'Nice - if you can get it' and available on the 'Scriptwrecked' cassette album. Recorded at CentreSound, Camden.

Hands Of The Craftsman

A vaguely jazzy, bossanova-ish track. Despite the slightly down lyric, a fairly happy sound as Harley songs go. I like the dual lead guitars - sort of Hot Club de Ludlow (which I think is where it was recorded).

Nobody's Song

The day I saved the world

Probably a jongleur song from the 15th or 16th century. I've known this tune, from a Canadian source, for decades, but only recently translated it, when I found some versions that indicated a more sympathetic story than the common one about a cheapskate whose girlfriend chucks him because he's too mean to give her flowers.

As I walked from my love’s wedding
By the spring where we once lay
From the top of a mighty oak tree
A songbird sang to me
It’s been so long that I’ve loved you
I never will love again
Sing, happy nightingale,
Sing, for your heart is light
Sing out your notes so merry
But all that I can do is cry

My love has wed another
Though I was not to blame
I gave to him my love too freely
Now someone wiser bears his name

Oh, how I wish that the rosebud
Still flourished on the vine
And that my false true lover
Still returned this love of mine
It’s been so long that I’ve loved you
I never will love again
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
Jamais je ne t’oublierai

Tears of Morning II

The Nightingale (A La Claire Fontaine)

This is a very old song (early 1970s) I keep revisiting. Old in years, but perhaps not in terms of maturity. This time I went back to it because Ian Semple played a version on his radio show on Coast FM (thanks, Ian!) that I'd not only forgotten I'd cut, but also couldn't find on my laptop. This version has a slightly trimmed version of the lengthy instrumental (much more recent) with which it starts, and a different take on the actual song. It's essentially the same track that I used on the Ten Percent Blues album, only I didn't use the instrumental for that album.
Unusually for me, the guitar is in open G (which I did use a lot more in those days, but mostly for slide). I think I originally wrote it on banjo, which might explain a lot.  The instrumental might reappear on a poetry/music project.

You sing your songs, the stage is bare
There isn't anyone out there
Sometimes it almost seems that way
And I run out of songs to play

Forget the muzak and the beer
The open mouths, the grudging cheers
There isn't any better way
To freeload your life away

Back in 1969
I lost someone I thought was mine
That's the price I had to pay
When I ran out of songs to play

Goodbye, old friend, I have to leave
To prove to myself that I'm still free
I'll see you in a year or so
And buy the round you say I owe

The long cigarettes, the cheap red wine
The melodies you say are mine
If you find somewhere to be
I hope you'll save a place for me

Long cigarettes, cheap red wine

My own variation on the 'Cocaine Blues' theme written in the 1980s, recorded much more recently. From my 'Swan Songs' album.

Snowbird

I don't generally write pure autobiography, but this one is nearer to that than most. Words and further information at https://whealalicemusic.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/how-to-say-goodbye-demo/

David Harley's Album

How to say goodbye

Instrumental version of a song collected by Carl Sandburg in Missouri. Combines two variants of the tune. He always called it The Sad Song, which indeed it is. The words are the subject of much discussion on Mudcat: maybe 19th century, maybe significantly older. The tune reminds me slightly of The Furze Field, but I think that's a little too upbeat to go from one to the other.
This is a remastered version that replaces a track already posted here.

LadyMary [remastered]

Live video version: replaces the more polished version of the song that was here previously, as that version is now available commercially.

Wrekin (the Marches Line)[demo]

Singer/songwriter/guitarist, now emerging from a long career in IT security and hoping to raise money to record a commercial CD, since gigging isn't an option right now. In the meantime, there are some tracks recorded in the 80s and other home-recorded tracks floating around.

David Harley

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