Category: Songs

Cinders, home from the ball: words and music copyright David Harley, 1975 

I haven’t sung this in decades, so this is rough – still not sure I remember the chords correctly – but I’ve been finding old songs and thinking, “Gosh, this is worth saving.” A better version should be along sooner or later. :)

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Strange landscape
of soda lights
blank windows
city nights

The Lord of Revels folded up
the streetcorner faces
the small hours swallowed whole
and Cinders hurries home from the ball

Cinders you’re the saddest song I’ve sung
barely grown, aching and alone
fingers fumbled numbly for the key
to fit that Bluebeard’s door
and she wondered “is that all?”

She lets herself in
from the cold into the cold
creeps up creaking stairs
and hopes that no-one calls
and still the war drags on
but there was fresh blood spilt tonight

Probably the first of my settings of Housman’s verse, from the 1970s, though the recording is much more recent. This is from ‘A Shropshire Lad’.

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Different master:

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Not to be picky, but though this is from ‘A Shropshire Lad’, Bredon Hill is actually in Worcestershire. Housman himself was from that county, so was no doubt fully aware of that fact.You can find the words to this one on the Housman Society’s page, but this version of the words here is from Martin Hardcastle’s site.  Continue reading “Bredon Hill [new demo]”

Words & music (c) David Harley

Backup:

(needs removal of phantom harmony!)

 

Alternative version

Backup:

 

When I was a kid in a country town
and I’d nothing better to do:
I’d detour round by the railway bridge
on my way home from school.

Leaning over the bridge with my chin in my hands,
too young to be wondering why,
I’d wait what seemed hours for the signal to change:
wait for a train to go by

The lure of the footplate, the churn of the rods
straining to places unknown;
fog in November, smoke in the cold air
the faraway steam-whistle moan;

bathing my eyes in the warmth of the lights
as up the track she would fly.
I’d get home late: they’d ask ‘Where have you been?’
I’d say ‘watching the trains go by’…

Saturday lunchtime some days in the spring
with the sky an implacable blue,
collecting the numbers of Castles and Kings:
it’s all we’d want to do.

Perspective of steel cut through frostbitten green,
just went on to a faraway end,
and I always felt sad at the Cambrian’s tail-light
as she’d disappear round the bend.

Now trains mean timetables, luggage and waiting rooms,
leaving the people I love;
the pounding of diesels, the A to B run
– perspective has subtly moved.

Tonight I am free and the rails are still endless
(if I had the fare to ride)
but I stand on a footbridge in the heart of the city
watching the Tube trains go by.

David Harley