Long Cigarettes, Cheap Red Wine revisited

This is a very old song (early 1970s) I keep revisiting. Old in years, but perhaps not in terms of maturity. This time I went back to it because Ian Semple played a version on his radio show on Coast FM (thanks, Ian!) that I’d not only forgotten I’d cut, but also couldn’t find on my laptop. This version has a slightly trimmed version of the lengthy instrumental (much more recent) with which it starts, and a different take on the actual song. It’s essentially the same track that I used on the Ten Percent Blues album, only I didn’t use the instrumental for that album.

Backup version:

Unusually for me, the guitar is in open G (which I did use a lot more in those days, but mostly for slide). I think I originally wrote it on banjo, which might explain a lot.  The instrumental might reappear on a poetry/music project.

You sing your songs, the stage is bare
There isn’t anyone out there
Sometimes it almost seems that way
And I run out of songs to play

Forget the muzak and the beer
The open mouths, the grudging cheers
There isn’t any better way
To freeload your life away

Back in 1969
I lost someone I thought was mine
That’s the price I had to pay
When I ran out of songs to play

Goodbye, old friend, I have to leave
To prove to myself that I’m still free
I’ll see you in a year or so
And buy the round you say I owe

The long cigarettes, the cheap red wine
The melodies you say are mine
If you find somewhere to be
I hope you’ll save a place for me

David Harley

Introduction to Nashville Tuning book

There’s now an expanded version of an article that used to be on this blog available as an eBook or paperback on Amazon. (I might reinstate the article at some point but it will require some editing, and certainly won’t contain anything like all the material the book does.)

This is a short textbook on an alternative technique for stringing and tuning a guitar to get a very bright, treble-y sound that can be used to create some very unusual effects. It may at least interest some of the people who’ve asked me questions about Nashville stringing/tuning when I’ve used it in performance. It includes information on more-or-less related tunings, and the factors that need to be taken into account when considering setting up an electric or acoustic Nashville-strung guitar. It also includes links to a number of sample sound files illustrating the technique and ways in which it can be used to emulate other instruments.

It’s the first part of a book series called Strings Attached, though it’s more background than anything. The other books will be about albums, songs, and the history behind them.

The book is called Introduction to Nashville Tuning for Guitar, and it’s available as:

  • A reflowable eBook for Kindle, so you can do things like resize the font on a suitable device if it makes it easier to read. It includes links to audio clips.
  • A print replica book – that means you can’t change things like font size, but as well as links, there are embedded audio clips so it can be read even when there’s no Internet connection.
  • A fairly slim paperback version, since Amazon likes it if I do a paperback too… No embedded clips, I’m afraid. ;) But the links are still there!

The previous book, The Vanes of Shrewsbury, featuring drawings of Shrewsbury buildings by my uncle, Eddie Parker, is also available on my Amazon page, as an eBook or as a paperback.  There are even links to some of the security books I’ve written or edited or contributed to.

David Harley