Category: Uncategorized

The tune may change a little before I finish with it, and I need to practise a bit more on guilele, which I don’t often play. But I quite like the overall sound, where the light-ish arrangement lifts the rather sad words.

Backup:

Bedsit Blues (words & music (c) David Harley)

Breeze on my body, the sun in my face
It’s a do-nothing kind of day
Laying back in the grass and closing my eyes
Letting my head drift away
But my mind rambles back to that faraway summer
Less than a year ago
12 months can be a lifetime
More than the long years before

Was it so recent, that first light kiss
That wakened my sleeping soul?
It seems so long since you laid in my bed
So many bad trips ago
But love is a whisper, an echo, a candle
Wavering in the wind
And a year can bring changes too deep to ignore
And wipe out the person you’ve been

Now it’s ten in the evening, the jukebox is playing
“It’s all over now”
I doodle on beermats, chat with a stranger
Close my ears to the sound
“I used to love her”: Lord knows I loved you
God help me, I love you still
But I talk at new faces and try to relate
I wonder if I ever will?

I suppose if I wait for an aeon or two
It’ll start to make some kind of sense
But I’ve tried for a while, and I can’t seem somehow
To think past the present tense
The fact is, it’s easy to live without hope
But once let it into your head
And time is an arrow; love is a knife;
Loneliness a single bed

Words & Music (c) David Harley

I haven’t tried this with guitar yet, as I wanted to get the tune down before I forgot it…

Backup:

Jericho

 (Originally a meld of Johnny from the faintly scandalous ‘Gently, Johnny my jingalo’ and Bunny Jingedangelow from the Brian Aldiss novel ‘Greybeard’, but the character seemed to take on a life of his own.)

Breach the barrel, drain the cask
Scrambled wits behind the mask
And drink awhile with Jimmy Jericho

Sell your soul and pay the fee
The price of immortality
You pay to Jimmy Jericho

The master sings, the jester dances
Round and round the room he prances
Dancing to the tune of Jericho

And as he spins such fine romances
Disciples quarrel for the chance
To gather at the feet of Jericho

Round and round the room they go
The tears, the tears they trickle slow
Down the cheeks of Jimmy Jericho

The devil scans with eyes like coals
The broken dreams and stolen souls
Betrayed by Jimmy Jericho

David Harley

 

This demo was recorded back in the 80s, and the voice was in better shape.

Backup:

More recent version, which is actually not bad (and less ambient noise):

or (backup):

Down to the River: copyright David Harley, 1981

Another example of the sort of song I never write. I’m not really sure where this one came from.

I won’t go down to the river / anyway not yet
There’s too much to do and the water’s cold / and I don’t want my feet wet
I don’t want my feet wet

I won’t go down to the river / I guess I really should
But the sand’s so warm between my toes / and you know it feels so good
I know it does me good

Come on down to the river / it can’t do you harm
You’ve got to learn sometime to sink or swim / and the sun will keep you warm
The sun will keep you warm

I won’t go down to the river / you know I can’t go down
The water’s so still, the sides so steep / I’m scared that I might drown
So scared that I might drown

Come on down to the river / the road’s so hard and rough
If you keep your head and your hands are clean / surely you can’t drown in love?
You can’t drown in love

I can’t go down to the river / I surely can’t go down
My soul is parched but my body aches / and I just know I’ll drown
I know I’ll surely drown

Come on down to the river / it tastes so sweet and cold
Come on down before it gets too late / and wash the mud out of your soul
The mud out of your soul

We’ve got to get on down to the river / we have to learn to trust
Got to wash away all the doubt and fear / before the whole damn’ world dries up
Before the world dries up