The Carpenter’s Son [new demo]

Tune Copyright David Harley, 1977.

Latest version:

Updated version with vocal and guitar.

Instrumental version with guitar and bouzouki:

`Here the hangman stops his cart:
Now the best of friends must part.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die.

`Oh, at home had I but stayed
‘Prenticed to my father’s trade,
Had I stuck to plane and adze,
I had not been lost, my lads.

`Then I might have built perhaps
Gallows-trees for other chaps,
Never dangled on my own,
Had I left but ill alone.

`Now, you see, they hang me high,
And the people passing by
Stop to shake their fists and curse;
So ’tis come from ill to worse.

`Here hang I, and right and left
Two poor fellows hang for theft:
All the same’s the luck we prove,
Though the midmost hangs for love.

`Comrades all, that stand and gaze,
Walk henceforth in other ways;
See my neck and save your own:
Comrades all, leave ill alone.

`Make some day a decent end,
Shrewder fellows than your friend.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die.’

David Harley
Small Blue-Green World

Nowhere to Nowhere [demo]

Words by Alison Pittaway

backup/alternative take:

Birds made homeless today
The tree fellers came to take their prey
Diggers ripping up the earth
Concrete laid down for what it’s worth
From nowhere to nowhere

Green belt turned grey – why should they care?
Tainted money buys land laid bare
Shifting soil, uprooting pines
Laying down more railway lines
From nowhere to nowhere

Villages and fields torn in two
Digging holes in the hearts of me and you
Earth and rubble shifted load by load
Traffic chaos on the roads
From nowhere to nowhere

Meadows buried under bricks and dust
Lost to the profiteers and money lust
Left us no time to have our say
No time to see what went astray
From somewhere to nowhere

Nowhere to nowhere
Nowhere to nowhere