Category: albums

1. Goose and Common 02:02

The Inclosure Acts enabled the passing into private hands land that had previously been designated as either ‘common’ or ‘waste’. This process preceded by several centuries the formal Inclosure Acts (which began with an Act of 1604) and continued into the 20th century, resulting in the enclosure of nearly seven million acres. While enclosure facilitated more efficient agricultural methods, that increased efficiency and loss of communal land was a factor in the enforced move of so many agricultural labourers into towns. There are a number of variations of this poem, which is usually assumed to date from the 1750s or ’60s, when enclosure legislation started to accelerate dramatically. The tune here is mine: the repeat of the last line is not in the original text, but I thought some chorus harmonies might be nice. 🙂

There are a number of variations of the text, and often just the first two verses are quoted. There’s an alternative four-verse text from ‘Tickler’ magazine dated 1821, but I like this text better.

I’ve previously recorded it unaccompanied, but wanted to try it with a guitar part.

A traditional song learned many years ago from Ewan MacColl. Also known as ‘The Brisk Lad’. (The song, not Ewan.)

He collected it from the Dorset singer Caroline Hughes in the 60s, but Hammond also collected two very similar versions, also in Dorset, in the first decade of the 20th century. I noticed around then that the tune is clearly related to one associated with the rather more spiritual ‘The Carnal and the Crane’ and ‘The Holy Well’, though Martin Carthy also used it for a version of the less-than-spiritual ballad of adultery and murder ‘Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard.’

When I sang ‘The Sheepstealer’ in the 70s, I always sang it unaccompanied, as did Ewan MacColl.

Much more recently, though, I started to play ‘The Holy Well’ as an intro to my own Song of Chivalry (though not for the song itself, which uses a more-or-less original tune). Even more recently, when the Dorset song came up in conversation in a Facebook group frequented by Cornish songwriters, it occurred to me that a somewhat similar guitar part would work quite well with it. And I think it does: your mileage may vary, of course! (Josh Rogers, this is your fault!)

I admit to having made minor changes to the lyric over the years, unintentionally.

Talking of the Song of Chivalry, here’s a version of the song using for an introduction the tune often associated with the ballad ‘The Holy Well’ (Roud 1697). ‘The Sheepstealer’ uses a variation on the same tune. The words to the song were published twice as a poem before the main tune finally turned up.

Written for the revue “Nice (If You Can Get It) – a revue about work” in the early 1980s. At the time the revue was put together and (briefly) toured, I was working by day for a company that built staircases (mostly). This song is based on my personal experience of working in the woodworking industry, though I was a wood machinist, not a carpenter.

In a recent conversation, I expressed some regret that I never got to do something like the radio ballads put together by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Charles Parker et al, then realized that the revue was actually quite near to that concept.

Ian Campbell also wrote some songs in that idiom, including one called The Apprentice’s Song, but that’s about gas fitters. Mine is about an apprentice carpenter, and I’ve changed the title to avoid confusion with Ian’s song.

Originally a poem of sorts, but re-recorded as a song after a discussion about that harsh little joke in the third verse. I honestly can’t remember if it was used in the revue – it was written around that time, but maybe not soon enough to be included. Like ‘Long Stand’, it touches on the uneasy relationship between the old hand and the apprentice – while hazing or snipe-hunting is a particularly unpleasant way of keeping the young ‘uns in their place, it’s not always considered the duty of the master to encourage the apprentice.

The tune is now mostly associated with ‘Tramps and Hawkers’, a song that seems to have been written by ‘Besom Jimmy’ in the late 19th century, though the tune is far older than that. (Ewan MacColl used the same tune for England’s Motorways, from the radio ballad ‘Song of a Road’, about the workers who built the M1.)

Included because it has been mistaken for a traditional song. In fact, I wrote it for a revue in the 1980s: the same one as ‘Call Yourself A Craftsman?’. Both of my songs (and Sting’s much later ‘Sky Hooks and Tartan Paint’, come to think of it) look at ways in which veteran craftsmen keep the youngsters in their place, though ‘Long Stand’ just uses ‘hazing’ as a jumping-off point for making a political point.

This is a re-recorded version.

Back in the days when Britain had industries, it was customary for the older blokes to send apprentices to fetch curious items such as a can of striped paint or some rubber nails. The lucky lad who was sent for a long stand was liable to be left standing at the counter for a half an hour or longer while the storeman went off for a cup of tea and a chuckle. The guitar was tuned DADGAD, to give it a folksy Martin Carthy/Nic Jones feel. But it still sounds more like David Harley to me. Oh well…

I once had exchange of snailmail – it was before my internet days) – with the former Labour MP Joe Ashton, who mentioned the sport of apprentice-hazing in his column for one of the tabloids, describing some similar japes and a particularly vigorous retaliation involving tacks and doggy-do.  I bet you don’t get that kind of hazing in merchant banks and call centres. Though, considering some of the people who work in those environments, I suspect that some of the bullying is even worse

While it’s by no means traditional – though Ken Hughes pointed out to me once that a bit of ‘The Bells of Paradise’, which Ron used to sing, had crept into my tune – it’s often been mistaken for a folk song, and it was important in my own development as a songwriter. So here, for good or ill, it is.

This is remastered from the version previously included on ‘Tears of Morning’ and other albums.

Originally released on the ‘Tears of Morning’ album, slightly tweaked here.

My setting of words written by ‘WHB’, probably in the late 18th or early 19th century. See davidharleysongs.wordpress.com/2020/09/25/ballad-of-the-arbor-tree-rough-demo/ for (much) more information.

Not really folk, but probably fits quite well with borderline songs like ‘Staines Morris’.

A heavily adapted version of a traditional ballad (Child 68; Roud 47). I found when I was still at school in the 1960s, though I’ve undoubtedly changed it since. I didn’t have a tune for it, so I cobbled one together. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found the words, though I’ve come across a very similar American text (unattributed) since. Remastered from a previously released recording.

The first of three songs about women betrayed by men. In this case, however, the woman’s response is… robust… There are certainly longer versions of the ballad, but I like the way this one is relatively terse yet manages to keep the supernatural element.

A song – maybe originally a jongleur ballad – well known in France, Belgium and Canada, translated and arranged by me.

The tune used here is well known – I think it may be the one in the Penguin Book of Canadian Folksongs.

I’ve always liked this particular tune, but the words as I’ve seen them have always seemed problematical to me, with the lover whining that he was unjustly discarded for being reluctant to give his lady a spray of roses. Hard to be too sympathetic… When I found some older versions where the protagonist was clearly female and the spray of roses symbolizes her maidenhead, it made more sense, though it also makes it more difficult for me to sing it convincingly myself. (I may attempt a male version that is nearer to the original sense, but that could be challenging.)  This is a rather free translation, picking up a possible interpretation that the lady lost out by giving in too easy, and then being too ‘easy’ to marry.

C’est de mon ami Pierre, qui ne veut plus m’aimer,
Pour un bouton de rose, que j’ai trop tôt donné.

Other versions suggest that she was dropped because she _didn’t_ give in. As well as making my chosen subtext a little clearer, I’ve compressed the story by dropping a couple of very common lines referring to the protagonist bathing, as that doesn’t seem to translate well. The song is often seen as a children’s song, but this approach might be considered a bit too explicit for that.

And yes, vining roses are a thing: they’re climbing roses trained to grow along fences and trellises.

A traditional song (Roud 312) collected in several versions by Peter Kennedy in the 1950s and popularized by Anne Briggs and Bert Jansch both separately and together. Jimmy Page borrowed Jansch’s arrangement and renamed it ‘Black Mountain Side’. My version owes more stylistically to Davy Graham, though I don’t remember every hearing Davy play it. I’d never played it until I heard Atlantic Union’s Sally Goddard sing it: while Sally and I did work up a version on which this recording is based, it’s much freer than the Atlantic Union’s very rhythmic version. We haven’t performed it in public yet, but never say never.

I don’t sing it on my own, as it just doesn’t suit my voice. However, I recorded it when discussing arrangements with Andi Lee (The Ashen) who has also recorded it, though our arrangements are quite different.

My setting of a poem from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (II). The tune is adapted from the reel ‘The Rose Tree’ (it’s basically the ‘A’ tune), so it kind of fits here, though it’s also available on ‘So Sound You Sleep’. And after all that betrayal, I thought it was time for something upbeat.

This is very much a Marmite song. Some people love it: a few have found it too depressing to listen to without offensively noisy commentary, but I don’t hold to the opinion that all music has to be happy-clappy. (As you’ll have noticed if you’ve followed my other music, though this album is comparatively upbeat.)

The tune is based on two traditional tunes: ‘Musselburgh Fair’, and ‘Dives And Lazarus’. The story is partly based on someone I met in London in the 1970s.

Variants of the tune used here have been used for versions of The Recruited Collier, The Trees They Grow High, and We Shepherds Are The Best Of Men (and no doubt many others). As the latter two of those songs were associated with Shropshire’s Fred Jordan (among many others, of course) it seemed fitting to use it for one of my settings from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (XX). Previously released on ‘So Sound You Sleep’ but this is a re-recorded version.

A little guitar duet that was driving me crazy this afternoon. It was originally recorded as an iimprovised ntro to an instrumental version of ‘Maids of Mourne Shore’, the tune better known as ‘Down By The Salley Gardens’ since it was used as a setting by Hughes in 1904. However, I wasn’t happy with the guitar sound on the main tune, so I abstracted the bits I did like. I may come back to this on a future recording: it might even sound more like ‘Salley Gardens’ eventually…