David Harley Words & Music & Pictures &…

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

Composer unknown.