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)

Making music from my home studio and posting it on SoundCloud and occasionally on YouTube for you to enjoy. In this day and age when it’s not uncommon for young people to have never even bought a single album, I believe it’s time for a new business model. I believe music should be freely available to anybody for noncommercial use. 

Don't forget to click the “follow” button to keep up with my new tracks and show me who I am making them for. It's because of you guys that I get to keep recording and playing music, so I am forever grateful to my awesome fans.

Thanks!

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.