Ben Watt's SpinCycle - part 2

He dreams of fields where grass was greener
Thinking somewhere else he'd seen her
Such a bygone fool for all the world
With such a lass
And she as beautiful as summer
Wrought by dignity and style to dress
Her working class

– roy harper

Roy Harper Shop

JANUARY MAN

In 1961 the white South Africans devised a stupidity they called 'Apartheid', an ugly piece of legislation the intention of which was to create a permanent division between the races. What this really meant was that anyone who wasn't white was excluded from all but the most basic means of normal social process. Thousands of us demonstrated for equality in South Africa. Usual stuff. We all spoke in our own way. Mine was to write a love song rather than a hate song, (which I'd already written in any case). I attempted to treat the subject matter with care for a future in which the white hierarchy might be persuaded to abandon apartheid. So, speaking from South Africa's point of view, 'Once I was another's lover, now I am my own', where once I was a member of a commonwealth of people, I am now alone, still vainly trying to call myself a brother. Maybe if you came to see me, wishing I wasn't so blind, sitting here in this desolate expression of freedom, then maybe you could help us all here to change our collective mind. I thought that I ought to go down there at the time, to sing a few songs, but the restrictions were too draconian and I was demanding integrated audiences. There was no way either for me to go or for them to allow me to act freely.

In the second verse, I express this desire to go there, and sing a love song. 'We have never met each other', I've never been there; and often I whisper her name, 'South Africa', as a love song, in the hope that wounds will heal, and the same English words will blow across the airwaves in an attempt to ease prejudice. A very positive song. In the event, things are not that much better. Admittedly, Nelson Mandela, who I often think of as the father of humanity in our times, has graced the world at large for what seems an age now, but western corporations appear to be running his country and keeping the townships poor. We all need to trade, but fat cat money is apartheid in disguise. And the disguise is thin. I can still have hope, but we'll have to stay active. – Roy Harper 2003

To the memory of Madiba from a grateful world... 

South Africa

Live In Concert at Metropolis Studios, London

Pinches of Salt (Live at Metropolis Studios)

Tempo dos Mestres

Baião (feat. Sam Gendel & Tiki Pasillas)

Every Time the Feeling

Flat Baroque and Berserk

Another Day (2016 Remaster)

BLEACH

Phonte - Sweet You (Daniel Jamezzz Flip)

You can buy this track here: http://theveils.bandcamp.com/

Grey Lynn Park

Flies Like a Bird

Sophisticated Beggar

Stonehenge 1984 - A Midsummer Night Rock Show

Rock 'N' Roll Man (Live)

Few survivors from the golden age of British folk-rock have kept their reputations intact. Of the generation of troubadours who came of age in the folk clubs of London in the mid-1960s, some have passed away, others have surrendered to the regurgitation of the blandest form of acoustic folk music. But among the survivors, there is one figure whose body of work, comprising 23 studio LPs and almost as many live and compilation releases, has come to stand for a particularly single-minded form of integrity. That man is Roy Harper.

Now officially ‘retired’, and living in a secluded corner of Ireland, Harper has recently been hailed as a key influence by a much younger generation of devoted starsailors who instinctively recognise his innovations, his refusal to compromise and his visionary world view. It is rumoured that Joanna Newsom insisted she’d only play her recent UK shows if he would support her. The likes of Fleet Foxes and Jim O’Rourke are avowed fans; and in previous decades he has enjoyed public endorsements and tributes from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and many more.

Another Day (2016 Remaster)

Roy Harper

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