Category: David Harley

Night Terrors

Revisiting ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ a few days ago was an uncomfortable experience, given recent events in the Middle East, though it’s a decent example of Le Carré’s writing skills. Immediately afterwards, I got much more pleasure out of reading ‘Terry Pratchett – a Life with Footnotes’ and thinking for at least 15 seconds that I might attempt an autobiography. However, I eventually decided that I’d rather read Pratchett’s biography than mine, despite the sadness that clouded his final years. Still, there have been some moments of joy in my own life that I wouldn’t swap for anyone else’s memories. (I wonder if you know who you are!)

Yes, there’ll probably be a tune for this sooner or later: I don’t think it’s great poetry.

Sometimes I lie awake,
Cataloguing my mistakes,
Catastrophizing in the night:
Caught up in night terrors
Review comedies of errors: 
The ones I sometimes call my life.
And yet there've been sweet dreams
Among the nightmares and the screams,
Good love and good music on the way.
I've tried to keep to the Highway Code,
And though I'm running out of road,
I hope there aren't too many fines to pay.

Hanging Tree

Very rough demo of a heavily recast variant on a traditional theme. It’s unlikely to stay unaccompanied.

Hangman stay your hand awhile, 
Just you let me be
Yonder comes my father dear, 
He's come to pay my fee
Son, I didn't bring no silver
And I won't pay that fee
I just came to see you hanging
From that gallows tree

Hangman, stay your hand awhile
Don't you tie that noose
I think I see my mama come
With gold to turn me loose
I've got no gold or silver
And I can't pay that fee
I just came to see you hanging
Hanging from the gallows tree

Don't put that noose around my neck
Just you let it be
Yonder comes my sweetheart dear
She's come to set me free
Honey did you bring silver
Or gold to pay my fine
And save me from this bitter rope
And save this soul of mine

I sure ain't paid your fine
It does no good to curse
No silver in my pocket
No gold in my purse
No one's riding through the night
In hopes to set you free
But I'll be watching as they hang you
From that hanging tree
I'll be laughing as they cut you down
From the hanging tree

There is, of course a multitude of songs where the potential hanging victim is saved by his/her sweetheart paying his fine (The Gallows Pole, The Prickly Bush etc.), and others where there’s no option of paying his way out of the execution (Derwentwater’s Farewell, The Sheffield Apprentice), or it’s too late to derail the process (Geordie/Georgie) but I didn’t remember one where the sweetheart, presumably in revenge for some slight or injury, came to watch with no intention of effecting a rescue. Maybe at some point I’ll write about the backstory…

New album: ‘Farewell Reunion’

By David Harley, Dave Higgen, and Nancy Higgen, masquerading as the New Prize Silver Jug Band.

There’s a certain amount of genre hopping here, but no actual jug band music.  Come to that, no brass/silver band either. Next time, maybe.

Back at the end of the 60s at college in North Wales, Dave and I, among others (including Sally Goddard, better known more recently as part of the Canadian band ‘Atlantic Union’, and Paul Dunderdale, last heard of teaching music on the Isle of Man) occasionally gigged under a name that cheekily parodied that of  a local silver band. When Dave and I started (via the wonders of internet connectivity) to record together, it seemed appropriate to resurrect the name (but dropping the name of the real band!)

Farewell Reunion (name taken from one of Dave’s songs) is currently available only from Bandcamp, though it may get streamed at some point. No hurry for that, since it’s unlikely that any of us will live long enough to make the threshold for payment from Spotify etc…

Dave Higgen: engineering and production; bass, drums/percussion, keys, guitars, vocals**, any instruments unaccounted for.

David Harley: octave mandola, most of the guitars and impersonation of other things with strings (but not the harp), vocals*.

Nancy Higgen: vocal on ‘Mad as the Mist and Snow’***

Here’s the tracklist. You don’t have to buy anything to listen to tracks.

  1. Anywhere (Harley)*
  2. Summer (Higgen-Harley)**
  3. Old White Lightning (Harley)*
  4. Bourgeois Domesticity (Higgen)**
  5. A Rainy Day Blues (Harley)*
  6. Mad as the Mist and Snow (W.B. Yeats-Higgen)***
  7. Who Do You Think You Are? (Harley)*
  8. Alone (Higgen)**
  9. Hannah (Upcountry) (Harley)*
  10. Ugly (Higgen)**
  11. Keepsake Mill (Robert Louis Stevenson-Harley)*
  12. Farewell Reunion (Higgen)**
  13. Paper City (Slight Return) (Harley-Higgen)*
  14. Lachaise (Higgen-Harley)*