Songs – Page 73 – David Harley Words & Music

Who are we?

Words and Music by David Kenyon and David Harley

Backup:

A more tentative arrangement:

Backup:

Sad victim of the overground
Talisman I wear against my heart
She knows she’s not the first to shed some light on me
She knows she may well be the last

I’ve heard some rumours of a world outside
Beyond the circle of her arms
Strange legend of a race for time
Make-believe world of false alarms

Who are we?
Who are you to tell us?
Who are we?
Who are you to tell us
Take a look at yourselves

I met Dave Kenyon at South Hill Park, Bracknell in the early 70s. We kicked some stuff around in the studio there – I don’t have any tapes at this point – and he had a fragment of a song (basically the last part of this lyric and a tune IIRC). I worked on it later in the form that eventually got recorded here, roughly, but I lost touch with him before that. If you’re out there, Dave, get in touch!

David Harley

Stranger in Uniform [demo]

Words and music (c) David Harley

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video:

Audio capture/master:

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Antique electric version:

Backup:

Quiet days / Slow march past of the minutes
Remorseless progression / of the hours
The sun burns out / in a mock tropic sky
The sands run down / and time holds its breath

Waiting, ever waiting for the stranger in uniform
To shatter the mirror-still days

Quiet days / counting falling leaves
Stripping petals / from a scrap of bush
Nights under the trees / hiding from the world
Singing wild songs / to a gypsy moon

Waiting, ever waiting for the stranger in uniform
To shatter the cut-crystal days

Quiet days / sunrise leaps from tree to tree
A small boy with a fishing rod / re-lives jam-jar days
Ripples smooth away / the wrinkled image
Waiting for history / to rewrite the page

Waiting, ever waiting for the stranger in uniform
to shatter the diamond-cut days

Quiet country days / in a honeymoon paradise
Raindrops / dancing tiptoe on the glass
Clouds hang heavy / as time and history
Hiding in each other / in autumn 1939

Waiting, ever waiting for the stranger in uniform
To shatter the looking glass days

Janey

Words and music (c) David Harley

backup:

Janey, tell me are you leaving?
Talk to me without disguise
Is it time I turned to meet
The grey dawn rising in your eyes

Is the shadow in your sleepy eyes
The secret of your flight?
Will you leave me taking with you
The whispered secrets of the night?

When I wake some morning
Will I find myself alone?
Tell me now will tonight be the night
I’ll reach out and find you gone

Sermons in the dusty moonlight
Tell me that I should have known
I would wake some sad morning
To find my heart has turned to stone