Backup:
(Words & Music copyright August 2016, David Harley)
This tune actually started as a setting of Charles Causley’s ‘Ballad for Katherine of Aragon’, but it didn’t seem like I was going to get permission from the Causley Trust to use it, so I started thinking about other words that would fit it. Then it struck me that it was a much better tune than the one I’d been intending to use for this ballad for a very different Katherine.
Took you down to the High Road
Where I’d taken you once before
Kissed you and left you crying
There at the nursery door
From the day our children are born
Until the day we die
We keep on learning to let go
And how to say goodbye
Took you down to the station
Waited with you for a train
A kiss and a wave from the platform
Saw you homeward bound again
From the day our children are born
Until the day we die
We keep on learning to let go
And how to say goodbye
Took you in from the car
Walked you down the aisle
Kissed you goodbye at the reception
Once more you left me, with a smile
From the day our children are born
Until the day we die
We keep on learning to let go
And how to say goodbye
Walk me down to the station
Time that I went home again
Blow me a kiss from the platform to warm
An old man’s heart on the train
From the day our children are born
Until the day we die
We keep on learning to let go
And how to say goodbye
David Harley
Wheal Alice Music 