David Harley Words & Music

At the time I wrote this, even being forty didn’t seem something I needed to identify with: all the other stuff seemed far, far away. So not too many biographical clues here. :) In fact, I used to precede it with ‘Love Hurts’ so that you had two diversely miserable love stories together: however, I don’t think I could get away with singing ‘I’m young, I know…’ these days.

Backup:

An older version with solo electric guitar.

Backup

Words and Music by David Harley, copyright 1986

Front tyre blew
Tax overdue
Picked up
A parking fine or two

Gas bill trouble
Rent is doubled
You say
“NOW what’s wrong with you?”

Dentures slipping
Nervous twitch
17-year-itch

I’m underpaid and overweight
So let’s go and celebrate

Who said life begins at 40?

Kids are listening
Separate beds
Bitter thoughts
In separate heads

Kids are screaming
Dogs are howling
Milk gone bad
We’re out of bread

So I leer at typists
Wonder which
Might scratch
My seventeen year itch

I must have wasted
So much time
The other side
Of 39

Monday morning
Bus queue blues
MOT
Overdue

My head is bursting
My eyes need testing
Sorry
That I snapped at you

Sorry
Sorry
Always saying sorry
Always praying
There might be some peace sometime
The other side of 65
But would it be so hard to be
Another aging divorcee?

David Harley

Like Long Stand and Hands of the Craftsman, I wrote this for the revue “Nice…if you can get it”, directed by Maggie Ford sometime in the early 80s, but wasn’t used as it wasn’t really in keeping with the other material. I haven’t thought about it since, but when I found it lurking among my juvenilia, found that not only could I more or less remember the tune, but that I actually quite like it. Minor changes to the lyric which no-one will notice but me…

Backup:

I’m through with the world and those city screams
I’ll take to the air with a cargo of dreams
All of my life I’ve been tied to the ground
Now I’m spreading my wings to take to the clouds

Flying away
Flying away

No more will I lay aching bones on cold earth
Reaching out for the sun now I know what I’m worth
No more shuffling around, feet nailed to the ground
My skysails are set and I’m outward bound

Flying away
Flying away

At one with the winds I’ll take to the sky
No longer afraid of the sun in my eyes
I’ll rise with the lark and see the world so clear
But it’s your world, not mine, and my world is here

Flying away
Flying away

Words and music by David Harley © 1973

I recorded a version of this in the early 70s in Manchester, but never did anything with it, and I no longer have the tape. I’ve changed a couple of minor things in the lyric that mildly irritated me, but the vocal arrangement is much as I remember it, though it was originally purely acoustic and I’ll be adding some instrumentation. It’s very much a 20-something song, and I didn’t want to do a 60-something update.

Backup:

Age of the Hero

Deep down I know I should forget you
Get out with my ego intact
My head knows the end of the game
Is historical fact

But my heart never quite seems to make it
I can’t seem to learn to let go
It’s a one-way ticket to nowhere
But where else to go?

I took someone else to a party
In hopes of a two-way high
And stayed for a while in search
Of an alibi

Slipped out for some air and some distance
Got to thinking and wondering and then
I wasn’t surprised to get back and find
She’d gone home with somebody else

Now I lie on my bed, my mind racing
Watching dawn seeping in from the East
And the Age of the Hero is over
I can let go of that game at least

And I wait for the future to tell me
Whether angels are still to be found
And I’m trying hard not to stop hoping
That there’s still enough love to go round

Words and music by David Harley
© 1973