David Harley Words & Music & Pictures &…

Trying out two slightly different arrangements for The Pilgrim (setting of a Yeats poem)

Different mix:

3rd mix:

And another pass at ‘The Wild Swans At Coole’:

Revisiting ‘When I was’ (part 1) – a cappella harmonies

Something a little off-piste for me: a song collected by Cecil Sharp in the Appalachians. Sarah McQuaid does a version of this, I think from Peggy Seeger. This version comes from Guy Carawan – oddly enough, from an LP he recorded with Peggy Seeger. However, he sang it unaccompanied (though he did interpose some passages on recorder).

In making-the-tune-up-as-I-go-along mode. The lyric isn’t quite finished either. But going in the right direction.

We never will have Paris (Harley: ©2019)

 I know that this is going nowhere
But a honeymoon in Heartbreak Hotel
Yet it seems that all I’ve done is think about you
For longer years than I have words to tell

Sometimes I catch myself hoping
Just once more to see you smile
In spite of all the harsh words passed between us
And all these long and weary miles

Perhaps you’re on your own tonight
Somewhere out there in the rain
Caught between the raindrops, still hoping
You’ll never be this sad again

Again and again along the highway
We kissed at the turning of the road
Till somewhere I forgot to say goodbye
Walking down some sleepy highway on my own

I know we never will have Paris
Or even one more foggy day in London Town
I wonder if you ever wonder
If the going up was worth the coming down

David Harley

The Weekends [are the worst] (Harley)

The world has changed since I was born in 1902.
Two World Wars have swept away the world that we once knew:
Two brothers and three sisters , long dead and gone to earth
Our lives were often hard, but now the weekends are the worst.

My old man died just 20 years past.
His health was never good since the Kaiser had him gassed,
But in the end it was cancer that carried him off so fast
I miss him all the time, and the weekends are the worst.

You might say I was lucky, though we never had much cash,
But we had 50-odd good years, more than I’d dare to ask.
I brought up three lovely kids, though another died at birth:
I miss them all a lot, and the weekends are the worst.

I’ve a son in Melbourne, he’s been there since ’62:
I’ve never seen his wife or kids, just a snapshot or two.
My eldest died in the last lot, on a convoy to Murmansk:
It still brings tears to my eyes, and the weekends are the worst.

I’ve a daughter in Glasgow: she writes when she has time,
But that’s a long way off, and I’ve not seen her for a while.
She’s got a son in the army, just been posted to Belfast:
We worry all the time, and the weekends are the worst.

My friends are mostly dead, or else they’ve moved like me
When the street I was brought up in was pulled down in ’63.
Sixty years I’d lived there, child, girl and wife:
Sheltered housing’s not so bad but it can be a lonely life.
Especially since Jim died: we weren’t too bad at first
But now I’m on my own the weekends are the worst.

There’s the club once a week, though it’s just from seven till nine,
And since my fall they only fetch me down from time to time.
There’s my knitting and the TV, for what that might be worth,
But I miss the company, and the weekends are the worst.

David Harley

Poem by William Butler Yeats, set to music by David Harley. Trying a slightly different approach.

Here’s an earlier version, with guitar.

I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk,
For passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk,
In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray,
And what’s the good of women, for all that they can say
Is fol de rol de rolly O.

Round Lough Derg’s holy island I went upon the stones,
I prayed at all the Stations upon my marrow bones,
And there I found an old man, and though, I prayed all day
And that old man beside me, nothing would he say
But fol de rol de rolly O.

All know that all the dead in the world about that place are stuck,
And that should mother seek her son she’d have but little luck
Because the fires of purgatory have ate their shapes away;
I swear to God I questioned them, and all they had to say
Was fol de rol de rolly O.

A great black ragged bird appeared when I was in the boat;
Some twenty feet from tip to tip had it stretched rightly out,
With flopping and with flapping it made a great display,
But I never stopped to question, what could the boatman say
But fol de rol de rolly O.

Now I am in the public-house and lean upon the wall,
So come in rags or come in silk, in cloak or country shawl,
And come with learned lovers or with what men you may,
For I can put the whole lot down, and all I have to say
Is fol de rol de rolly O.

David Harley

Having tried heavier bronze strings on my resonator, I found myself trying for something a little different in the way of a slide instrumental. This doesn’t have a title as yet and will change as I get to know it, but I really rather like it as it is.

Just played into a microphone: nothing subtle in the way of manipulation, and I haven’t yet tried connecting it via its pickup. It’s a Gretsch Bobtail, if anyone cares…

David Harley