Month: July 2024

A little radio play…

…never does me any harm. Those of you with musical ears might suffer a bit though.

Anyway, ‘The Folk Club‘ is playing my ‘Song of Chivalry’ in the ‘Here we are’ section of their upcoming show, along with tracks from Ezra Biggs and Ann Radcliffe.

Here’s where you’re in danger of hearing it:

Also available as a single on Bandcamp. As always, you don’t have to buy it hear it! There’s another version here, where the guitar accompaniment is in Nashville tuning.

When M’Lord returned / To his sheets of silk
And his gentle lady / Of musk and milk
The minstrels sang / In the gallery
Their songs of slaughter / And chivalry

The rafters roared / With laughter and boasting
Goblets were raised and drained / In toasting
The heroes of Crécy / And Azincourt
Or the madness / Of some holy war

The hawk is at rest / On the gauntlet once more
Savage of eye / And bloody of claw
Famine and fever / Are all the yield
Of the burnt-out barns / And wasted fields

The sun grins coldly / Through the trees
The children shiver / The widows grieve
And beg their bread / At the monastery door
Tell me then / Who won the war?

Motherless Child (demo)

Slide guitar version of the well-known spiritual (Sometimes I feel like a) Motherless Child. [Roud 10072] Probably from the Civil War era or earlier. Arranged and adapted…

I don’t sing it, but a common first verse is:

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child x2
A long, long way from my home

Not to be confused with Motherless Children or the blues Motherless Child or several more recent songs.

Or:

Fairy Gold (demo)

Words and music by David Harley.

For the moment, just an unaccompanied vocal while I work on another project. The words and music are mostly there, but I need to work on an accompaniment when I get back to it. There are many stories about Wild Eadric or Edric, his defiance toward the Norman invaders and eventual capitulation (seemingly historical fact); his marriage to a fairy princess; his imprisonment in the Shropshire Hills, emerging when England is in peril, and his association with the Wild Hunt. The Devil has long been associated with Shropshire, too, the Devil’s Chair being a rock formation on the Stiperstones.

The lyric arose from a sour conviction that in the 21st century we are in as much danger from the misdeeds of politicians and oligarchs, the rise of social media misinformation, and a badly broken electoral system, as we are from dictators in other countries. Like the witches and demons who select their king before the Devil’s Chair on the longest night of the year, it sometimes seems we are only allowed bad electoral choices.

The words have changed slightly since the original recording, as I wanted to make them less UK-centric. I’d like to think that in an age of incoming global catastrophe (and I don’t only mean Trump’s promise to abolish voting), Aedric’s remit might have widened.

In stately halls the dreams are bought and sold
The promises will melt like fairy gold,
While high up there among the Shropshire Hills
Wild Eadric sleeps, his bride beside him still:
Satan sits upon his midnight throne
In judgement on their archaic flesh and bone

The spirits summoned to the Devil’s Chair
Elect their leaders for the coming years.
The Devil surely looks on with a grin
As we condone the enemies within:
The conmen and their masters far and near,
Still feeding on our misery and fear.

Where is the Wild Hunt now? What will it take
To rid this world of devilry and hate?

or: