Not my most recent album, but you might call this my Greatest Hits album, if I’d ever had any hits. It does include the four tracks released so far as singles, though, and most of the tracks are remixed and/or remastered. In fact, these are all songs that have attracted airplay in the UK and/or US, been requested at live events, or had significant numbers of plays where streamed or available in various video and audio formats. And anyway, I like ’em! Available from Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes etc.
Found, I think, in the book Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c, a book by John Harland, and Thomas Turner Wilkinson published in 1873. The tune is based on a traditional tune associated with the song The Wars In Germany. Much more information in the forthcoming Tears Of Morning book.
“What news, Sir Thomas Prestwich? What battles lost and won?”
“Mama, the King is sorely pressed, his armies overrun.”
“Give him all you have, my son, his armies to maintain;
And God confound the Parliament that brought him to such shame.”
“Mama, the King is sorely pressed, but I dare not stake my wealth,
For I fear the cause is already lost, and we must think of ourselves.”
“Give him all you have, my son, for wealth I have for thee,
Guarded well by charms and spells, my voice the only key.”
“Mama, the King is dead, the Prince fled overseas,
And with him flown my fortune, prosperity and ease.”
But Lady Prestwich said no word, and no sign could she make,
Nor ever did until she died, the enchantment for to break.
“Cruel was the sickness robbed my mother of her speech
And me of my inheritance, forever out of reach.
Cruel was the Protector, who robbed me of my lands,
The price set for their recovery £330.”
“I’ll maybe find an astrologer, some sorcerer I’ll find
To break the spell and find the wealth my mother put aside.”
Many tried, and many failed: Sir Thomas sought in vain
For that treasure never found unto this very day.
“A curse upon my mother, it’s ill she counselled me:
The treasure that she promised me, it seems I’ll never see.
My lands are sold to pay my debts, my fortune is no more:
I’ll bid farewell to thee, Hulme Hall, that I will see no more.”
…again with added music. (I suddenly noticed that it fitted another traditional tune perfectly!)
Backup:
Down in the workhouse when I was a lad
No tongue can relate all the pleasures we had
Dry bread, and Bastille soup by the bowl
And a flogging or two for the good of our souls x2
A tale I recall of those happy times
And an orphan lad always to mischief inclined
He was ever in line for a kick, at the best
And the poor workhouse master could scarcely find rest
Till came the day one of the other lads died
“Aha!” says the master, “I’ll settle your pride!”
He shut up the lad in the dead-house to stay
Alone with the coffin until the next day
But what should Jack do but open the box
He takes out the corpse, and with it swaps clothes
Props it up on the rail at the top of the stairs
Then he hops in the box and the winding-sheet wears
And when it grew dark, the master came up
With a plate for Jack, some victuals to sup
Holds it out to the corpse on the rail
Who says not a word, but stands stiff, cold and pale
“Well, take it!” the master says in surprise
“I should think you’d be starving by now, damn your eyes!”
Then up leaps Jack, who was lying so still
And says “If he wunna eat it, I will!”
When the master heard this he got such a fright
He let go of the plate, and turned whiter than white
Gave a terrible shriek, such a fright did he get
Fell back down the stairs and near broke his neck
Wasn’t that a sad fall for a man such as he
So kind to his charges, with his boot so free?
So pity the poor who must live on the Roll
And think on the guardians and pray for their souls
A half-written song of mine based on a story of Knighton workhouse from ‘An idler on the Shropshire borders’, by Ida Gandy. Told to her by Ellen Hughes (nee Jordan) 1864-1940 also known as Granny Hughes. Many thanks to her great-granddaughter Denise Lewis of the Memories of Shropshire FB group for the information and photograph. I wrote the words back in the 70s, I think, but thought I’d better put a tune to it since it features in a book I’m writing.
In the previous post, the tune used was one associated with many songs, often sea-songs, with a ‘down-derry-down’ chorus.
For this version, I’ve switched to the tune called The Limerick Rake, also used by Tom Paxton for The High Sheriff of Hazard and by Ewan MacColl for Champion at Keeping Them Rolling. I expect there are a good few others too: it’s a good tune.
…now with added music. (I suddenly noticed that it fitted a traditional tune perfectly!)
It also fits the subject matter of a book I’m working on: more on that in due course…
local backup:
Down in the workhouse when I was a lad
No tongue can relate all the pleasures we had
Dry bread, and Bastille soup by the bowl
And a flogging or two for the good of our souls x2
A tale I recall of those happy times
And an orphan lad always to mischief inclined
He was ever in line for a kick, at the best
And the poor workhouse master could scarcely find rest
Till came the day one of the other lads died
“Aha!” says the master, “I’ll settle your pride!”
He shut up the lad in the dead-house to stay
Alone with the coffin until the next day
But what should Jack do but open the box
He takes out the corpse, and with it swaps clothes
Props it up on the rail at the top of the stairs
Then he hops in the box and the winding-sheet wears
And when it grew dark, the master came up
With a plate for Jack, some victuals to sup
Holds it out to the corpse on the rail
Who says not a word, but stands stiff, cold and pale
“Well, take it!” the master says in surprise
“I should think you’d be starving by now, damn your eyes!”
Then up leaps Jack, who was lying so still
And says “If he wunna eat it, I will!”
When the master heard this he got such a fright
He let go of the plate, and turned whiter than white
Gave a terrible shriek, such a fright did he get
Fell back down the stairs and near broke his neck
Wasn’t that a sad fall for a man such as he
So kind to his charges, with his boot so free?
So pity the poor who must live on the Roll
And think on the guardians and pray for their souls
A half-written song of mine based on a story of Knighton workhouse from ‘An idler on the Shropshire borders’, by Ida Gandy. Told to her by Ellen Hughes (nee Jordan) 1864-1940 also known as Granny Hughes. Many thanks to her great-granddaughter Denise Lewis of the Memories of Shropshire FB group for the information and photograph.
The tune is the well-known ‘Down-derry-down’ tune used for various nautical songs including ‘The Dreadnought’/’Flash Packet’/’Liverpool Packet’/’Flash Frigate’… Though I guess it’s more naughty than nautical.
This is based on an 18th century lyric protesting against the Inclosure Acts, usually called ‘The Goose And The Common’ or ‘They hang the man and flog the woman’. I put a tune to a version of that lyric some time ago, and it’s on my ‘Cold Iron‘ album. While the privatization of common and/or waste land is more or less a done deal, the underlying topic of those who govern doing so for their own benefit rather than that of the people still has a very contemporary resonance. The lyric below makes that link more explicit: I don’t know that the world needs it, but somehow it demanded to be written… I don’t know that I’ll perform it as a song, though, as I’m already performing the older version.
The law demands that we atone
When we sell things we do not own
Yet lets MPs and Lords so fine
To sell off what is yours and mine
The poor and stateless don’t escape
When they conspire the law to break
This must be so, but we all endure
Those who conspire to make the law
You and I do not escape the web
Of laws that profit from us, the plebs
But MPs and their cronies too
Use or ignore them as it suits
The law forbids both man and woman
To protest corruption in the Commons
And so we all will Justice lack
Till we can vote to take it back…
I’ve been a little depressed at having to cancel a few dates this year because of ill health (including a Lafrowda fundraiser and the Weston-super-Mare Sea Shanty ad Folk Music Festival, unfortunately – shanties are not very Harley, but the event would have been fun). However, I’m very pleased to have been invited to support the rather excellent Green Diesel at the St Ives (Cornwall) Arts Club on August 9th. (And as it’s quite near to where I live, it shouldn’t be a problem healthwise this time.) Tickets (only £3!) from Eventbrite.
Something a little different from me on the Poetry Archive YouTube channel. Yes, it’s a poetry video. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) YouTube has done its favourite trick of keeping the volume as low as it can get away with, and I think I rushed it a bit. However, I suspect it will be on the forthcoming poetry and music project in some form.
Fortunately, there are plenty of videos on that channel worth listening to and not requiring tweaking of the volume control.
Meanwhile, here’s the poem.
Born in freefall, oppressed by gravity;
Cutting the harness and falling free
In the last days of the human race,
The last few metres of the Fall from Grace.
The gods look down and cannot change a thing:
No miracles, no more psalms to sing.
The rich men take the seats that they reserved;
The rest fight for a place on Dead Man’s Curve.
Somehow the human race is hanging on,
But humanity’s already dead and gone.
There’ll be no singing in the lifeboats,
Unless it’s in the Captain’s praise.
The countdown started long ago,
The last days of the human race,
But the chaos we’re creating cannot wipe
The smirk from the rich man’s face.
This is your last call:
The countdown to freefall.
The coming gale will shake the earth’s foundations,
And most of us will perish in the flood,
The poor and unseaworthy lie abandoned,
Buried somewhere deep within the mud.
Survival of the fattest; trickle-up economics;
Fact and fiction, fear and faith, despair and desire;
Politics and science, bigotry, morality:
We’re choking on the smoking and you can’t see the fire
.
Cold turkey voting still for Christmas
Season of myths and moral fruitlessness –
Break those habits, not the habitat,
Or you’ll take the whole world with you when you choke on the excess.
This is the very last last chance:
Let’s face down the muzak and dance.
I’ve posted a version of this here before, but I think I prefer this less ambitious and better executed guitarlele version. Closer to the spirit of the original, I guess.
Backup:
Here’s a version using guitar rather than guitarlele that I also quite like: the guitar version has been released as a single, but the guitarlele version will be released on a forthcoming album.
Backup:
According to Ewan MacColl, from whose singing I learned this many years ago, this doleful World War II song was originally “the anthem of the Middle East air force regiment” but was adopted by many units that saw service in the region. I revisited it more recently as part of a project by Clive Richardson in which I played a small part, accompanying Anne Merrill Gray on guitar, but did this one on my own. Not on guitarlele at that time, but hearing this again, I rather wish I had.
Seven years in the sand
Seems a long time somehow
Never mind, tosh, you’ll soon be dead
100 years from now
The pay is low, the food is rank
You get jankers now and then
You’re fed almost entirely on
The produce of the hen
Seven years in the sand
Seems a long time somehow
Never mind, tosh, you’ll soon be dead
100 years from now
Guitars, bouzouki (don’t blink or you’ll miss it), vocals by David A. Harley
All words and music by David A. Harley except ‘Thou Art My Lute’ – words by Paul Laurence Dunbar, music by David A. Harley
All rights reserved.
A mixed bag, but slowly catching up with some of the songs I should have recorded properly years ago. Plus some lyrics that have only recently found a tune (notably the Falklands song, 40 years too late for most people to care), and yet another setting of a poem, this time by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
David Harley Words & Music & Pictures &... 
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