I wrote this song (properly called ‘Rain’) when I was still at school in the 1960s and had just discovered folk music. And on the rare occasions when I’ve sung it in public, it’s always been unaccompanied, though I have previously recorded a version with pseudo-acoustic guitar. This, though is a very rough draft for a different vocal interpretation, and a step towards a properly electric accompaniment. More of that later.
David Harley
Another (non-bottleneck) version of ‘Faintly Fahey’.
The instrumental I call ‘Faintly Fahey‘ started as a sort of fake Irish air, then got translated into a bottleneck version. This is a non-slide version closer to the original idea.. There may well be more to come on this, as I think it might go rather well with the song ‘Can’t Sleep‘, but that needs more work.
David Harley
Like Long Stand and Hands of the Craftsman, I wrote this for the revue “Nice…if you can get it”, directed by Maggie Ford sometime in the early 80s, but wasn’t used as it wasn’t really in keeping with the other material. I haven’t thought about it since, but when I found it lurking among my juvenilia a couple of years ago, found that not only could I more or less remember the tune, but that I actually quite like it. Minor changes to the lyric which no-one will notice but me…
Backup:
I’m through with the world and those city screams
I’ll take to the air with a cargo of dreams
All of my life I’ve been tied to the ground
Now I’m spreading my wings to take to the clouds
Flying away
Flying away
No more will I lay aching bones on cold earth
Reaching out for the sun now I know what I’m worth
No more shuffling around, feet nailed to the ground
My skysails are set and I’m outward bound
Flying away
Flying away
At one with the winds I’ll take to the sky
No longer afraid of the sun in my eyes
I’ll rise with the lark and see the world so clear
But it’s your world, not mine, and my world is here
Flying away
Flying away
Words and music by David Harley © 1983
David Harley, copyright 1986. Published in Vertical Images 2, 1987. I waited 30+ years for the melody to turn up, and finally it did after we moved to Cornwall. And yes, I know that it’s unlikely that M’Lord fought at Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415). While the Black Death subsided in England from about 1350, but outbreaks continued right through the first half of the 15th century and well beyond.
Conventional version, in standard DADGAD, combined with an instrumental version of The Holy Well:
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Version in Nashville tuning:
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Also in Nashville tuning, but live version from Ian Semple’s radio show for Coast FM:
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Also on SoundCloud:
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
Beakers were raised and drained
In toasting
The heroes of Crécy
And Agincourt
Or the madness
Of some holy war
The hawk is at rest
On the glove 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?
Improvised slide piece that reminds me a little of John Fahey.
I’m ashamed to say I’m not well acquainted with the work of John Fahey, though I have occasionally played ‘The Death of the Clayton Peacock’ which I learned, I think, from a guitar anthology album. Even the way I play ‘Poor Boy/Vestapol’ ultimately derives from Stefan Grossman rather than either Fahey or Robert Wilkins. But that’s another story.
This is actually an improvisation (which started as a sort of pseudo-air in D-modal but somehow moved to a slide piece in Csus2), but it reminded me a little of the Fahey tracks I heard in the 70s. And now I think I’m going to have to start listening to him again.
Slightly tighter version than previously, played on resonator guitar.
Copyright David Harley, 2017.
[Version recorded for Ian Semple’s radio show on CoastFM, but in the end we didn’t use it.]
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First attempt at a (very basic) Youtube video: this time using a high-strung guitar.
Captured to audio and remastered:
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Original version. Another make-it-up-as-you-go-along jobbie. The words had actually been following me around for a few months, but it wasn’t till I started playing about with a Csus2 tuning (CGCGCD) that it clicked. Retained for purely historical reasons, since I’m now likelier to play it in DADGAD.
Backup:
Words and music copyright David Harley, 2017.
I don’t need this jangle
In my nerves
And in my head
I don’t need
These lonely hours
Here in my weary bed
But I can’t sleep
I can’t turn her off
I can’t get her out of my head
The night hours
Are bleeding away
Till the light runs away with my time
The shadow fades
And I’m so afraid
My words are refusing to rhyme
But I can’t shut her up
I can’t shut her off
I can’t get her out of my mind
I can’t shut her up
I can’t shut her down
I can’t get her out of my head
I can’t pick her up
I can’t put her down
I can’t get her into my bed
I can’t find the path
I can’t do the math
I can’t get it into my head
And I can’t break it down
I can’t break it up
I can’t get you out of my head
Copyright David Harley, 2017
This is me in strictly make-it-up-as-you-go-along mode. Even the words changed in the course of the thirty minutes or so I spent on this, so I won’t put them up here yet. The whole thing is quite rough, but at least the tune seems to be all there.
[Original recording removed as the vocal was really rough.]
This is a banjo-ish version, taken down a tone so that the vocal is a little more comfortable. (I’ve practised it a little, too, which helps.) I like the ‘Lowest Pair‘ feel to the accompaniment, but the final version will probably restore the acoustic guitar with some slide and less banjo, and maybe bass or baritone guitar. So right now we’re still in demo mode.
Here’s a redone vocal with the words that I’ve (more or less) settled on.
Words and music copyright David Harley, 2017.
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I came across this accidentally, and it was much better than I remembered. Still, I intend to get back to it.
David Harley
One of my earliest songs, written in the late 60s (though it’s been through a few changes since then: haven’t we all?)
backup:
There’ll never be a better time for starting something new
I’m spending too much time alone, brooding over you
But nothing comes that easy, and I’ve got so insecure
Since the angel I was slowly learning how to trust is surely finding
Strange ways of turning long-time dreams into nightmares after all
The sun will rise and fall and the night will win again
So I’m promised with no guarantee of stars
And in my street-lit room I will sing some different tune
To the futile rusting chords of my guitar
The beggar-clown will weep as he tiptoes through my sleep
If he knows, he will not tell me where you are
In his hand he holds a candle I reach out to pluck its blossom
And it lies between the strings of my guitar
This may well be the first song I ever wrote that I can still remember all through, though it’s changed a lot since 1969. It contains some of the original lines, but the tune has changed completely.
Ian Semple kindly played a couple of my tracks on Coast FM today:
Let Me Lie Easy:
and one that I don’t do live at the moment:
Same Old Same Old:
With that, and some more kind words from another source, I’m feeling more than usually appreciated. Musically, at any rate. 🙂
David Harley
Wheal Alice Music 