Category: forthcoming

This is a collaboration with Alan Doyle, who wrote the tune and tweaked my lyrics. 🙂

I’m planning to include a cleaner (I mean better recorded, not less obscene!) version of this on a forthcoming album called ‘Kitsch and Canoodle’, but this is probably most of the way there.

Two lost souls living in a bedsit
Lying there back to back
She’s close to weeping, he pretends he’s sleeping
But he’s wondering what to pack
Someone needs to say ‘sorry’
But it seems that it won’t be him
They want to be happy, but they’d rather be right
So the chances of that are slim

Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go 
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right
Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right

Two lost souls standing by the bus stop
Neither finding words to say
He’s packed up his troubles in his old rucksack
But no one’s smiling today
Someone needs to say ‘sorry’
But neither seems to want to know
They want to be happy, but they’d rather be right
Instead of flattening the bumps in the road

Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go 
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right
Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right

Two old dears standing in the bus queue
Neither has a lot to say
He’s got the shopping and she’s got his arm
So it must have worked out OK
And they’ve learned to live with each other’s quirks and crotchets
And the angry words that quickly lose their bite
They wanted to be happy, and they want to be right
But they’ve learned to put the past behind

Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go 
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right
Sometimes it’s OK just to let it all go
And it really doesn’t matter who’s right
It really doesn’t matter who’s right

David Harley

Back in the 1980s, a handful of us – Bob Theil, Don MacLeod, Pat Orchard, Bob Cairns and myself – got together to record an album. Not a band album as such, but one that would represent the work of each of us as songwriters. Unfortunately, the album was never released because of contractual issues: it’s a pity, because there was some excellent stuff on it, in my unbiased opinion.

Fast forward to 2021: having reluctantly come to the conclusion that at my age and in my state of health, it’s unlikely that I’d do any more serious gigging even if life returns to something nearer to normal, so I’ve started to work on releasing some music digitally.

The first steps involved a couple of releases on Bandcamp:

• The album Tears Of Morning, featuring songs and a few instrumentals, most of which have some connection with Shropshire, including my settings of verse by A.E. Housman and ‘W.H.B.’ – Bill Golembeski’s very kind review for folking.com is here.
• The single ‘Moonflow VI‘ started life as a lengthy instrumental partnered with Bert Jansch’s ‘Needle of Death’ but took on a life of its own as the acoustic and resonator guitar duet ‘Moonflow III‘ (included on Tears of Morning), then acquired a couple of extra electric guitars, by which time it was in its 6th iteration.
• My intention is that ‘One Step Away (From The Blues)’, though it will be released only a few weeks after ‘Moonflow VI’, will receive a wider digital distribution, though it will also be available on Bandcamp. It’s one of my tracks from the 1980s album mentioned above, remastered to the best of my ability, and it has a more contemporary edge than the ‘Tears of Morning’ album. It will be released on Friday 12th February 2021. (Wheal Alice Music WAM03-21)
  • Words & music by David Harley
  • Vocals, acoustic guitar and electric slide guitar by David Harley
  • Acoustic lead guitar by Don MacLeod
  • 12-string acoustic by Bob Theil
  • Produced, engineered and mixed at Hallmark Studio, London.

Here’s a live-ish video of ‘One Step Away’ coupled with another song that I haven’t commercially recorded yet.