Category: Songs

Words and music by David Harley, copyright 1975

Backup:

I’ve resented it for decades when people have told me that I’m ‘influenced’ by Bert Jansch. I’m sure I’ve been influenced by many people, and I’d love to be able to play some of Bert’s songs, though there are only a couple I’ve ever sung, but I haven’t intentionally copied anyone in many decades. While I’m still in awe of his guitar-playing, I’m a songwriter with my own voice and guitar technique, and I tend to think that when people want to pigeonhole you as ‘copying’ someone else, that’s either just laziness or a bad case of ‘you’re no better than me, you’re just a copyist…’

Anyway, I was rather surprised to revisit this and notice that the vocal here was quite Jansch-ish in places. Especially as Bert didn’t actually do a lot of blues, that I remember: maybe I’d been listening to the album (‘Nicola’) on which he did do a lyrically weird version of Corinna/Weeping Willow and a slightly more conventional ‘Come Back Baby’. That said, the guitar here sounds quite John Renbourn/Wizz Jones, rather than Jansch – I think I hear a little bit of Al Jones there, too – but with some tropes I’m pretty sure are all mine … But I’m certainly not ashamed of it, and probably couldn’t match it nowadays.

The words are quite blues-pastiche, but not based on any older song in particular. Not a song I’d write now, but I think it works OK. Recorded on domestic equipment in the early 80s, though I’m pretty sure I was already singing it in the mid-70s, around the time I started singing much more of my own stuff. .

David Harley

 

 

Soleares: copyright David Harley 1988

This is, of course, a song called Soleares, not itself a soleá. Flamenco is not in my skill-set. The solemnity of the palo (form) seemed to suit the song, which is not one of my most cheerful. This is a demo because I just transferred it from a cassette, though the quality is quite good considering it was home-recorded in the 80s.

Soleares: copyright David Harley 1988

Backup:

There’s a note she keeps re-reading from a graveyard far away
The writer begs to offer sympathy
The man she once married and left so long ago
is gone beyond remorse and anything that might have been

Automatically she washes up, tidies and dusts
Starts to drink her coffee and leaves it to congeal
She tries to write an answer but somehow it falls apart
The words are vague and stilted – how can she tell how she feels

A threat of soleares spins softly from stereo
Ghostly in the sunlight, reflecting ancient pain
Sombre rasgueado, a hint of distant thunder
Like the muted threat of Spanish rain

The phone rings: she shares the news but nothing of her feelings
Someone says “So sorry – I’ll ring back if you like”
Ringing off as if in dread of inapt and nervous laughter
Hanging brittle in the silence though it never left her throat

Shadows lengthen into evening: she has a drink or two
As if to fill the emptiness she feels
She can’t trace her emotions but her thoughts are wheeling
Around a situation scarcely real

Somehow all our failures rise to haunt us from the graveyard
At times like this it seems that guilt and death
Potentiate each other like phenobarb and whisky
It passes with time but she can’t believe it yet

Her nights won’t all be sleepless like the one that lies ahead
In a world of other people with their own claims on her time
Other joys and sorrows: other games to win and lose
But a whisper from the grave still tells her “Tonight is mine”

Words and Music by David Harley, copyright 1970

[Updated 25th October 2015]

This may be the most positive song I’ve ever written. Which isn’t saying much, but at least it’s in a major key. Dedicated to David ‘Mex’ Higgen, who believed it to be written about him (which wasn’t altogether the case…) Mex was actually an excellent electric guitarist with whom I played from time to time when I was at university at the end of the 1960s. The ‘beautiful Ephraim’ line is a sideswipe at Jim Morrison, who is certainly past caring.

Remastered:

Backup:

This recording was actually taken from a work/demo cassette I recorded in the 80s. Probably using a Fostex X-15 recorder and mixed down to my ghetto blaster. I’ve used it to replace the more recent demo recording that was originally here, as my voice was in better shape on this version.

I used to think that life was for living
I was grateful for each and every day
I thought if we all tried a little harder
The world might be improved in some small way
But then you deflated my illusions
And made me see the error of my ways
You made me realize there is no black or white
Just a mediocre shade of grey

So thanks for nothing, Ephraim Clutterbox
You made me see the writing on the wall
You’ve rid me of so much of my foolish make-believe
That now I don’t believe in you at all

I used to be a gullible romantic
With a vague belief in beauty, truth and right
And a taste for lullabies and good intentions
With a sporadic urge to fight the good fight
But you told me it was all a social fiction
And I was too naive to disagree
When you exposed my neurotic motivation
And unhealthy craving for security

I’ve had enough of you, Ephraim Clutterbox
Your belief that it’s all lies and you can’t win
Your rational, so logical indifference
To anything that’s worth believing in
So this is the end, beautiful Ephraim
But I want you to know before you leave
I can kid myself your kind can be safely ignored
If enough people start to believe