It’s always nice to get radio play (thank you again, Ian Semple, for playing ‘A Rainy Day Blues’ today on Coast FM!), but I’m particularly looking forward to being played on this one, just because of the name of the show.
I hope no one will expect me to go all punk…
David Harley
I know it’s hardly five minutes since the last album, but I’ve actually been working on this one since last year.
Brookland Voices started as another vaguely folky album, but somehow Messrs Yeats (subsequently moved to the ‘Swan Songs’ album) and Housman elbowed their way in. Then I found myself with all these improvised or semi-improvised guitar pieces, some of them played on electric rather than acoustic guitar, and they do seem to dominate the album. In fact, while I would never claim to be any sort of jazz guitarist, this is probably as near to a jazz album as I’ll ever get. To be fair, ‘South Wind’ and ‘The Water is Wide’ are instrumental versions of traditional songs/tunes.
‘Severn Years In The Sand’ is a version of a song that seems to have arisen during World War II among units that saw service in the Middle East. ‘The Knocker Up’ and ‘It Ain’t Gonna Rain are actual folk songs. ‘When I Was In Love With You’, ‘Far In A Western Brookland’, ‘When I Was One-And-Twenty’ and ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ are settings of verse by Housman. The song ‘A Rainy Day Blues’ and the other instrumentals are my own, including ‘Chivalry’, which is an instrumental based on my own ‘Song of Chivalry’.
I’ve put this up before, but this is a version with electric guitar that I quite like. More jazz than blues, perhaps: I even played it on an archtop guitar.
Some days are like a melody
But I can’t seem to hold the key
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
So I spend my day trying to keep myself amused
Sitting here picking at a rainy day blues
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
It seems the road to fortune never ends
You play God all week and golf at weekends
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
And if we quit the rat-race we could have a ball
But you know those big wheels grind so small
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
You say you love me but it seems sometimes
You stuff my mouth with kisses and my ears with lies
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
Backup:
Does this man have nothing better to do with his time?
Here’s the summary:
I make no claim at all to be a cartoonist (let alone any sort of real artist). However, some people seemed to like my cheesy little cartoons (mostly IT-related), idiotic photos, and cheap sarcastic commentary, so I thought that I should start putting some of these ramblings together in the same place.
That place was the Dataholics blog, and much of this book was originally based on that content. Ironically, though, many of the cartoons have now been abstracted for other projects.
I parted company with most of the security industry in 2019 (though the recent book Facebook: Sins & Insensitivities did place me back in that arena, though not as a professional). That is, I supppose, why the Dataholics site has seen less use since then, and why what content has been posted is less like to have been related to IT security. On the other hand, much of it still has a connection to internet ephemera. Some of the content here comes from other blogs such as Parodies Regained while some hasn’t previously been made public at all.
A vaguely jazzy piece I first put together in the 80s, but I’m still trying to get it right.
It looks as if this version is going to be on the next album.
D.
Backup:
1. Ten Percent Blues 03:42
2. The Road 03:34
3. Marking Time 01:38
4. This Guitar Just Plays The Blues 02:49
5. The Last Musketeer 02:31
6. Orpheus with his Loot 02:27
7. What Do I Do (About You) 02:05
8. Rain 03:43
9. Paper City 05:46
10. Snowbird 04:44
11. Swift Variations 02:11
12. The Wild Swans at Coole 06:17
13. Cornish Ghosts 03:49
14. Hilltop Snapshots 03:38
15. The Road to Frenchman’s Creek 02:52
16. Song of Chivalry 03:58
In early 2023 an awkward medical condition brought it home to me that perhaps it was time to draw a line under any pretensions I have to live performance, so my appearance at the Lafrowda festival in St. Just on the 15th July marked a semi-official farewell to the live stage, not that I’ve played publicly much in recent years anyway. This album is drawn from the set list for that appearance, so it takes the form (mostly) of reinterpretations of familiar (to me, anyway) material rather than new songs.
I can’t promise that I’ll never be inflicted upon a live audience again (sorry!), and I’m certainly not promising that I’ll never record or write anything else, but this is, I suppose, an end to any thoughts I had of resuming my career as a professional musician when I retired from the IT industry in 2019.
Lyrics to ‘Marking Time’ by Fiona Freeman. Lyric to ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ by W.B. Yeats. Other lyrics and all melodies by David Harley, as are all vocals and instruments.
Experimenting with a little synthing… Not sure it fits the song… rough mix…
In spring a young man’s fancy is supposed to turn to love
An older man takes time to reminisce
He takes the path from Helford on a sunny afternoon
Searching once again for Frenchman’s Creek
Too soon for love-lies-bleeding, too late for love’s young dream
The sun plays peek-a-boo among the trees
By the gate at Kestle Barton, he stops to rest a while
Before following the signs to Frenchman’s Creek
Sometimes we lose our bearings, our love lost in a mist
We glimpse our Ithaca but doubt laps at our feet
Sweet 16 to 70, too many times been kissed
Was that the road to Manderley or Frenchman’s Creek?
Left high and dry so often by the tides of desire
Yet in autumn days a heart may rise from sleep
And still recall with thanks the times love wasn’t such a liar
And the tide may turn again in Frenchman’s Creek
Wheal Alice Music 