End Game: Words & Music copyright David Harley, 1974
All rights reserved
Written at a time when I was starting to realize that love doesn’t get any easier as you get older. In fact, it tends to get more complicated. Sketch for an arrangement.
Backup:
I’ve been looking out for zero
Since I don’t remember when
Praying not to draw
That same old blank again
But it seems at last time passing
Tears your paper shield apart
And love the silver bullet
Leaves its shrapnel in the heart
Rainy Day Blues: Words and Music copyright David Harley, 1973
Not really a blues, as you might gather from the fact that one version adds some bouzouki, not commonly used in that particular genre. (Hm. I think I may have set myself a challenge.) I actually changed the last verse quite recently as when I finally came back to the song (this afternoon, after about 30 years…), the original words struck me as slightly misogynistic. Well, I was young…
For Lillian, 30 years too late. 😦
Words and Music (c) David Harley
A cleaner recording than the previous audio version.
Backup:
And here’s a video, this time played on electric guitar.
Earlier versions:
This is a version with just basic guitar:
This is the same version with some overdubbed bouzouki: an instrument I’ve only recently added to my arsenal, so not very well executed, but I think it might go quite well with a bit of work. Maybe different lead instruments for each break…
This is the same version with some overdubbed bouzouki: an instrument I’ve only recently added to my arsenal, so not very well executed, but I think it might go quite well with a bit of work. Maybe different lead instruments for each break…
Some days are like a melody
But I can’t seem to hold the key
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
So I spend my day trying to keep myself amused
Sitting here picking at a rainy day blues
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
It seems the road to fortune never ends
You play God all week and golf at weekends
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
And if we quit the rat-race we could have a ball
But you know those big wheels grind so small
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
You say you love me but it seems sometimes
You stuff my mouth with kisses and my ears with lies
I don’t mind losing
I just wish I had a little more to lose
Words copyright David Harley 1981 (I think). As it’s a Talking Blues, there ain’t no tune. Duh. Published in the early 1980s in Folk London, and included a hat tip to Steve Bell’s cartoon series Maggie’s Farm. Included here for historical interest: I’m not likely to perform it again in this form.
If you’ve got those Monday morning blues
Lend me an ear and you can’t lose
Don’t run the rat-race till you drop down dead
Take a working vacation in the country instead
Down on Maggie’s Farm
Cleaning out the cowsheds
Up to your neck in BS
Lads if you’ve the urge to roam
Why stay on the dole at home?
Prove your manhood, score with girls
Join the army and see the world
Like Caterham, Aldershot
Downtown Belfast, Greenham Common
If you’re sixteen with nothing to do
We’ve got Youth Training Schemes for you
(not to be confused with Opportunities)
Starting out on a great career
Sticking labels on bottles of beer
And when your six months are up
You can tell ’em all about it
Down at the labour…
But if you’re getting past your prime
You’ve earned yourself some undertime
Step aside for a younger man
Enjoy retirement while you can
After all, life begins at … 35
And remember
3 1/2 million (it says here)
Can’t be wrong
Dying of communication: Copyright David Harley 1976
Remastered:
Backup copy
Sitting it out at the full moon
Reading my mail from the next room
Can’t you see we’re dying
Dying of communication?
Checking it out with the radio
Late late news is ‘no place to go’
Can’t you see we’re dying
Dying of communication?
Sitting it out in the bathroom
Freaked out on ego juice
Fighting it out in the bedroom
Wondering what’s the use
Everyone knows we’re dying
Dying of communication
This is, of course, a song called Soleares, not itself a soleá. Flamenco is not in my skill-set. The solemnity of the palo (form) seemed to suit the song, which is not one of my most cheerful. This is a demo because I just transferred it from a cassette, though the quality is quite good considering it was home-recorded in the 80s.
Soleares: copyright David Harley 1988
Backup:
There’s a note she keeps re-reading from a graveyard far away
The writer begs to offer sympathy
The man she once married and left so long ago
is gone beyond remorse and anything that might have been
Automatically she washes up, tidies and dusts
Starts to drink her coffee and leaves it to congeal
She tries to write an answer but somehow it falls apart
The words are vague and stilted – how can she tell how she feels
A threat of soleares spins softly from stereo
Ghostly in the sunlight, reflecting ancient pain
Sombre rasgueado, a hint of distant thunder
Like the muted threat of Spanish rain
The phone rings: she shares the news but nothing of her feelings
Someone says “So sorry – I’ll ring back if you like”
Ringing off as if in dread of inapt and nervous laughter
Hanging brittle in the silence though it never left her throat
Shadows lengthen into evening: she has a drink or two
As if to fill the emptiness she feels
She can’t trace her emotions but her thoughts are wheeling
Around a situation scarcely real
Somehow all our failures rise to haunt us from the graveyard
At times like this it seems that guilt and death
Potentiate each other like phenobarb and whisky
It passes with time but she can’t believe it yet
Her nights won’t all be sleepless like the one that lies ahead
In a world of other people with their own claims on her time
Other joys and sorrows: other games to win and lose
But a whisper from the grave still tells her “Tonight is mine”
David Harley's Songs 