Category: Songs

Paper City (Slight Return)

A song I originally recorded in the 1980s, updated for the New Prize Silver Jug Band lyrically to reflect 21st century technology a little better. Though the global economic system was both corrupt and built on sand even at the time it was written. And as 2025 wears on, it feels astoundingly topical. You don’t have to pay for it to listen to it, but we won’t object if you do pay for it. ;)

Apologies to the shade of Jimi Hendrix for the new title.

lyrics

I woke up with my mind’s eye fixing your location:
I looked up and I saw you needed help.
You’re floating on algorithms that you can’t understand,
But you can’t produce one thing to help yourself.

Paper city at the heart of a paper empire:
You’ve got strings to pull, you’ve got wires all over the earth.
Sky-climbing parasite, stalking a paper jungle,
You’ve got money to burn, but I know you’d rather freeze to death.

You’ve got stacks of stocks and shares and bonds:
You’ve got more data than you’ll ever know how to use.
But you can’t produce as much as one lead pencil,
Or a bar of soap, or a rubber band to pull you through.

The media twitch at the flash of a freemason’s handshake:
Speeches are made and the punters gather round;
Paper politicians and faceless company men,
Sucking the sap from an ailing paper pound.

I bet you know just what you’re worth on paper:
When the market crumbles, what will you do?
So many cold people don’t own the earth they lie in:
Will you be OK in your green-lined paper tomb?

Paper city at the heart of a bankrupt empire:
Your towers get higher as your assets hit new lows.
Nose-diving parasite, I wouldn’t mind your dying,
But you’ll take so many with you when you go.

credits

from Farewell Reunion, released January 7, 2024

Music and original words by David Harley. Updated lyrics by David Harley and Dave Higgen. Vocals by David Harley.

British Library: Sound and Vision

Some years ago, I was contacted on behalf of the British Library to ask if I’d be willing to contribute some or all of my recorded songs to the Sound & Vision collection. I was, of course, happy to do this, and forwarded sound files as albums were released, until I stopped getting a response as the files were offered for transfer. Eventually I realized that this must have been because of the serious ransomware attack carried out against the Library in 2023.

Seeing a reference to the Sound & Vision catalogue today, I took the opportunity to see whether any of my work had become available again to BL reader’s pass holders. Well, a couple of my books apparently are in the Interim Catalogue, though I didn’t have the patience to check through all the Harley-related references for work specific to me rather than all the various David Harleys et al listed there. (It’s extraordinary how many of us there are…) But it seems that the Sounds catalogue is not yet available, though it may be restored sometime this year.

To be honest, I probably won’t get to hear when and if my music does become available again. I don’t have a Reader’s Pass because they only allow access to archived material to visitors in person, and London and Yorkshire a both a long trip from where I live. So if you really want to see what music of mine is still around, for the moment your best bet is still Bandcamp. Though given the present state of the world, who knows how long that will still apply?

David Harley