Best Days [demo]

I tend to regard my songs as fiction, albeit sometimes taking their starting point from my own experience or that of people around me. This one, though, actually sounds closer than is comfortable to how I often felt in my mid-20s: not the best time of my life…

Backup copy:

The best days (Harley)

Sometimes I miss those other places where my lifestyle has been forged
I might even miss this town when I’ve moved on
Though I’m just turned 24, right now I’m feeling so much more
When I get this weary feeling that the best days are gone
The best days are gone

Other times I felt so low and wanted what was lost
Are hidden in a mist of golden days
But mostly I was happy, though I didn’t know it then
Such strange tricks that hindsight plays
Tricks that hindsight plays

Nothing’s as it seems to be, there’s no one I can trust
I want to wake and find myself a million years away
And more than once or twice when just living wore me down
I’ve wished I had the nerve to split and drift with the highway
And drift with the highway

There are names that I remember, many more that I forget
All the girls I never had, too many that I lost
One or two could make me cry at midnight all alone
But when you go I think I’ll miss you most
And now you’re gone, Lord knows I miss you most

David Harley

Accelerated Lady [demo]

This is a song I haven’t really thought about since the 70s, but it turned up when I started to (try to) rationalize my boxes and folders of lyrics, verse and prose, so I put it straight down as-is.

Backup:

Between the bar and the dance floor / Thinking that maybe
I might just catch up / To my accelerated lady

Why don’t you keep on dancing? / Dance on by

Watching you at a party / Too drunk to see
What it might take / To make you come and talk to me

But you’d better keep on dancing / Dance on by

What makes you think / I should apologise
For once drowning / In those bedroom eyes

Why don’t you keep on dancing? / Dance on by

Lights run hot / But the bottle’s not yet dry

With a little luck and whisky I’ll forget / even your name by midnight

Better keep on dancing / Dance on By

 

David Harley

Two is a Silence [demo]

I previously recorded a fairly polished version of this, complete with double-tracked vocals and bouzoukis. This is a quicker-and-dirtier version that has, however, the words as I sing them now…

Two isn’t company, three is a crowd
Two is a silence, three is too loud
Two is a silence gets harder to break
But three always leaves one left over

Three into two isn’t good for the head
It’s no problem in math, but it’s bad news in bed
And it’s one for an ace and two for a pair
But three always leaves one left over

When we’re alone somehow he’s always there
You say it’s the same when you two are the pair
So it’s one for sorrow and two for joy
But three always leaves one left over

All the shouting is over and dead
Somehow there’s nothing much else to be said
And it’s one for the money and two for the show
But three always leaves one left over

Two isn’t company, three is a crowd
Two is a silence, three is too loud
Two is a silence gets harder to break
But three always leaves one left over

David Harley