View from the top

Words by David Harley, tune by Don MacLeod

Recorded at CentreSound in the early 1980s.

Backup:

View from the Top

You learn to fall, then you learn to fly
I’ve been a lifetime learning, but I always got by
Living in pain isn’t living in vain
I’m used to losing and there’s so much to gain

Your love’s a mountain that I’m learning to climb
And it’s a long way down but somehow I don’t mind
I know the dangers but I don’t want to stop
It’s worth the fear of falling for the view from the top

Dawn rings the changes from a crawl to a run
Out of the shadow and into the sun
It’s not surprising if the light hurts our eyes
But if loving you is crazy it’s too late to be wise

Sometimes a voice inside whispers “Take care of yourself:
What makes you think you’re the one to take care of anyone else?”
All I can say is, “Don’t care if I fall:
She’s got the best part of me – she might as well take it all.”

You’ll say I’m crazy, but lady, no joke
I’m scared of busting but I’m going for broke
And I don’t know if I’ll fly or I’ll fall
But living without you is no life at all.

Hack my brain

New words by David Harley to ‘Cocaine Blues’ or something similar.

An earlier version of this one insisted on being included in a security blog: IoT Hacking: Surviving an Online World. [Also referenced in this article: Music, Security, and a Nice Cup of Tea.] However, the whole ‘why-do-I-put-up-with-this-alarmist-BS-anyway-when-I-could-retire-to-a desert-island-with-no-internet?’ thing keeps nagging at me. (The answer is because I’d rather live somewhere with reasonable access to a wine merchant.) There’s probably enough mileage in this for a whole (rather sour) opera, but life’s too short for that. I suspect I’ll probably record this version sooner rather than later, however.

I suspect that this rant may offend some prophets of doom, security marketroids, politically active acquaintances, other acquaintances about whom I May Not Speak, The Register, Mark Zuckerberg, and my pro-meme and pro-gun friends on Facebook. If so, I’ll try to live with it.

I won’t go to Heathrow, I ain’t insane
Blackhat hackers might hack my plane
Whoa-oa, Stuxnet all over again

I won’t fly or go by sea
Seaport hackers aiming gas at me
Whoa-oa, Sarin all over the world

Hey doc won’t you please come quick
Hacker in my pacemaker making me sick
Trojans all round my brain

Looked in my mailbox, it’s all the same
Politician wants to hack my brain
Whoa-oa, moneygrubbers in my brain

Went down to Washington and what do I see
CIA has tabs on me
GCHQ all round my brain

Headed for my keyboard on the lope
The man from the Register said ‘no more hope’
Whoa-oa, hackers all round my brain

Hey nurse won’t you please come quick
EEG says I’m really sick
Paranoia all round my brain

Some say the Facebook habit ain’t bad
It’s the leakiest backdoor I’ve ever had
Whoa-oa, Zuckerberg’s in my brain

Hey baby won’t you bring some beer
2^nd amendment up to my ears
Cat memes overloading my brain

Ain’t going shopping, that ain’t my speed
Amazon will tell me just what I need
Whoa-oa, ads all around my brain

David Harley

Circle

Backup:

This is the preface Wilfred Owen drafted for a collection of war poems intended for publication in 1919.

“This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.

Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War.

Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.

My subject is War, and the pity of War.

The Poetry is in the pity.

Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

(If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives – survives Prussia – my ambition and those names will have achieved fresher fields than Flanders…)”

I quote it here because every year it seems to me that we give too much credence to

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

I wrote this song out of disrespect. Not disrespecting those who suffer and die in battle or as a less direct result of warfare, whether or not the world called them heroes; not disrespecting those who lived on, suffering injury or the loss of loved one; but I have no respect at all for those whose ‘respect’ is founded on seeking political and commercial advantage. When I added this note in 2015, that cynical capitalization on tragedy seems, if anything, even more in evidence than it was in the 1980s.

Sleep well old man, and don’t look down from some heavenly aerie
To see the edifice we’ve built on your philosophy
The sacrificial fires below bear the devil’s mark
But it was hands a lot like yours that struck the first spark

Continue reading “Circle”