With his fat belly hanging over his belt
He's a lot of fun
He's got flexi jeans and a leather belt
He's the number one
Comb that thining hair 
he's got so much flair
Macho debonair

So take that bunting down
There's no one in town
And I know there's no-one cheering
You called everyone
But no-one's come
They must be hard of hearing

Pack up your dreams and put them away
There's no heaven at the end of this stairway
You never launched that ship on your slipway
You were always waiting for someday

Waiting For Someday

Come my love, don't dwell upon the things that we have lost
Pride and passion, honour, love, sought at such a cost
We never did understand the twisting of the ways
It will serve us best to lift our heads and think of better days

Base Photograph for cover art by Anna Gru on Unsplash

Better Days

An instrumental based very loosely on the lovely Bill Withers song. I liked the groove and thought it had a summer feel : )
If anyone wants to add anything I have made the high quality file downloadable, if your DAW cannot handle high quality files I can make an MP3 version available if you want : )

Lean On Who? (Instrumental)

Sometimes

Tweak

Peace

I wrote the lyric for this song after a family blackberrying expedition a few years ago. My old friend Gareth and I put some chords to it and recorded it. Lizzy Taypen said that she liked it a lot, so I took the opportunity to rope her in to sing with us. I mixed her vocal in and produced another version. https://soundcloud.com/garddwrporffor/blackberrying-harmonies-with-lizzie-mix-2
I listened to it again and thought that Lizzies vocal was very special and that I had missed the best version. So I mixed a version with only Lizzie singing and a more gentle support track. I thought that it was beautiful, it is the track  here.
Her page https://soundcloud.com/taylor-pentland

Blackberrying

When the sun light falls in a steeply slanted angle
And the colours of the world fade to muted reds and golds
The living soil still holds it’s warmth and waning sweetness
As another summer gently slips from our aging fingers hold
We can still find simple joy in the things we did as children
Finding fruit among the bushes along the margins of our roads
with our adult children now
as we enjoy this timeless pleasure
Of finding fruits just hanging ripe and ready in the hedgerow
And taking them back home with us like edible treasure hoards

Folk don’t seem to bother now, to take the time to pick them
Still they grow and glow like jewels amongst natures topiary
A present from an old imagined ancient world of wonder
As sweet fruit drops into our hands from the realm of the fairyies
We stretch to reach the fullest ones, beyond reach in the branches
the nettles tingle our arms and legs if we fail to be wary
Then we carry home our bounty, taking great care not to spill them
and turn them into memories that we had very nearly lost
a refreshment for our hearts from our purple blackberries

Blackberrying feat Lizzie Taypen

Some familiar ideas in a different context

Hey You

A Pirates Life

There I was just standing, with my finger in my mouth
Hoping for the best, although my luck had just gone South
The 'boy stood on the burning deck' had nothing against me
It was quite a poor decision, to pursue a life at sea
The Captain came down very hard, he was not an easy man
 ' What type of ruffian pollutes the earth with such a scurvy plan' 
It was not me, who did this thing,  my clement Captain bold 
I did not shoot that man and this is definitely not my gold

I could have been so far away, so far away from here
The thought of it now fills my heart and starts a manly tear
My sweetheart she encouraged me to 'live an honest life'
But I knew for sure that I'd gone wrong when they called me Jack the Knife
 

'Lets keelhaul him',
'we'll hang him high',
'make him walk the plank'
None of which appealed to me at all, if I'm being frank
A pirates life seemed full of fun, at least it did to me
I didn't do it, I've been framed, I'm a good man honestly

A Pirate's Life

Vocals and lyrics by the wonderful Nadia Selvaggi https://soundcloud.com/nadiaselvaggi
The rest by me

Evergreen

Ye sons of the dawn
all clad in proper clothes
Ye are the brightest and the best of us,
or so we're told

Morning trumpets blow
for the chosen in the know,
and graven images carved in stone

English evergreen
dominates the canopy
Please don't swallow me
Evergreen

Creeping over men and walls
Binding, choking all,
when night falls

Burying the past
and the future you forecast
Brotherhood of Death,
and of Skull and Bone
clinging steadfast

English evergreen
dominates the canopy
Please don't swallow me
Evergreen

Evergreen (with Nadia -synth mix)

Just one step further and Amenhotep will save me, or will he yet 
The guardians are grounded, and sleep in the silence of the potion to forget
we all forget 
All the hounds howling in the distance, a dread quartet
Unlock the espagnolette 

Moving windward through the suburbs
Wild flight is my name, the interdictal bane
My weapons here are useless, in this consequence of rumours
As a conjurers legerdemain

With wild crowds throwing missiles, to bring down the government
Tendentious armies take positions in our now encumbered state
Sending messages to morons, 
In the endless dead debate

Amenhotep Will Save Me

A song in an old tradition, with the wonderful Nadia Selvaggi. 
I recommend that you go and listen to her lovely music https://soundcloud.com/nadiaselvaggi

Oh, where is my love

Oh, where is my love
Oh, where has he gone
He has gone to the war
With fathers and sons
To fight for our right
to live a peaceful life
To safeguard the future 
of daughters and wives
To fight those other men
With rockets and knives

They were once our neighbours
Our cousins and our friends
We would live together
Brothers without end
How could they turn against us
What twisted reason wends
To create this wicked violence
To hell we will descend

Oh where is my loved one
I have heard not a word since he left our home
I fear I have lost him 
I have heard not a word
Please return to me my darling with the swiftness of a bird
Please fly to me my darling with the swiftness of a bird

They were once our neighbours (etc as above)


Oh, where is my love
Oh, where has he gone
He has gone to the war
With fathers and sons
To fight for our right
to live a peaceful life
To fight those other men
Who have daughters and wives

Oh, Where Is My Love (with Nadia)

The Land of Frowns

I told the man he'd have to go
You are not welcome here you know
You do not speak as others do
Our people are afraid of you

So would you help a man when he's really down
and lost within this land of frowns

Land of Frowns

So I wrapped myself in things I'd found
and laid myself out on the ground
and the devil comes in many ways
he came to me that day

Far away I was a young man

Oh, my home, I had to go

I'm a stranger in this foreign town
Stranger in this land of frowns
Oh, land of frowns

So I told the man he'd have to go
You are not welcome here you know

Land of frowns......

The Land Of Frowns

A tune from several acoustic guitars, a bass and vibes

blue

One Acoustic guitar, some Celli and Vibes. 
This track was originally called 'So, misogyny, racism and corruption are OK after all' after the orange nutter was re-elected in a democracy.
Robert Llewellyn pointed out that this was a waste of a lovely track. 
I was watching the latest Professor Brian Cox BBC documentary programme 2 'Dark Planets' in his series 'Solar System' and I changed the title to celebrate the amazing reality of our universe and our staggeringly brilliant scientific ability to perceive it. The best in humanity is inspiring.

Dark Planets

Inspired by a recent visit to the beautiful Westonbirt Arbouretum.

Part of Everything

We had some fun didn't we
And when it is done and we are all beneath the trees

The sunlight will shine
And the rain will fall
and we'll still be a part
of everything after all

We were small and simple
We were tall and dimpled
We were mixed and mingled
We were love's true symbol

Part of Everything

A song for Christmas. 
Nadia joins me on lovely backing vocals. https://soundcloud.com/nadiaselvaggi 
We are reducing our carbon emissions by recycling and reusing my nylon string guitar behind the song : ) This is therefore a companion piece to Nadia's 'At Christmastime' https://soundcloud.com/nadiaselvaggi/at-christmas-time-by-garddwr-porffor-nadia-selvaggi

Christmas Song

It's that time of year again
Peace on earth and goodwill to all men
The whole world seems to be a mess
What can we do to relieve our distress
Will our mistakes forever last
Is nothing possible because of the past

This world has been here for a billion years (give or take a few billion)
Each year it starts again with no arrears
It doesn't look back and think it's wrong
Each day begins with light and birdsong

Nature teaches us that life's an evolution
We should follow it's path to find our solution
Each year the buds break and start anew
Could you forgive me and I forgive you?

live and let live
forget and forgive 

Photo by Guillermo Casales on Unsplash 


Christmas Song (with Nadia)

Two guitars twiddling, one for each ear : )
Base phot for image by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

Appy New Ears

Several tracks on my Les Paul and my Peavey bass

Waltzing Guitars

An acoustic guitar, a bass guitar, a synth and a sense of wonder......

Oh! Wondrous Things

One guitar fingerstyle, in a sort of ragtime...

Straight Ahead

Two tracks of my old nylon strung classical guitar

The Longed For

The Law Of Unintended Consequences

'When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.' - Edmund Burke

We are reverting to a pre WW2 world order. Have the madmen won and is this what democracies want?

A New World Order

So this is the new world order
Seems just like the old world order

One big thug hits the weak man to the ground
And the other big thug takes the money that they've found

But, this is the new world order

Think of the progress, the progress that we made
A new law of the jungle and cancel all that aid?

Those poor suckers thought we were playing by the rules
But we don't give a shit about them, do they think we are fools?

So doesn't it make you feel proud, to take your place
To take your place in this deadly human race

Squeeze that sucker until he squeals
Everybody knows that's the art of the deal

When Mr East and Mr West decide to work together
The folks in between are in for nasty weather

A New World Order

Guitar string, piano and bass twiddling : )

Tweedle Dee

5 Les Paul tracks and one Peavey bass track.
This is the latest in my 'fools rush in' series. 
Composed with one of the masters in mind : )
Base photo for artwork by Yevhenii Denshko on Unsplash

Salt

Inspired by the beautiful short story by EM Forster

The words are an extract.

The Celestial Omnibus

'It does not pay. It was not intended to pay. Many are the faults of my equipage; it is compounded too curiously of foreign woods; its cushions tickle erudition rather than promote repose; and my horses are nourished not on the evergreen pastures of the moment, but on the dried bents and clovers of Latinity. But that it pays! - that error at all events was never intended and never attained.'

The base photo for the artwork is by Andrew741 on Unsplash

The Celestial Omnibus

A Higher Path

The track now including percussion by my Latin friend Sergio Párraga, thanks Sergio : ) 
Hear more of his lovely music https://soundcloud.com/sergioparraga

A Higher Path - (Even Higher with Sergio)

Abcd – Lyric

Abcd - Who the hell do you wanna be
Efgh – think when you become of age
Ijkl – you’re living on a carousel
Mnop – I’ll take you, will you take me
Qrst – you’re a father now you see
Uvw – they’ve left home, it’s me and you
Xyz – he expired quietly…

A B A Z A B A Z………

Abcd – you start school, you’re only 3
Efgh – you’re off to university
Ijkl – we’ll live together just as well
Mnop – I helped her through adversity
Qrst – we’ve paid the mortgage now you see
Uvw – I did’nt want to trouble you
Xyz – she really meant so much to me

A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
M N O P
Q R S T 
U V W
X Y Z
X Y Z…………

Abcd

All music, songs, lyrics and artwork are original, unless noted.
Collaborations welcome.
 I advise playing on a good Hi-Fi or at least good headphones, otherwise you will miss all the lower frequencies and  only hear half of the music : )

Garddwr Porffor

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