Get all 28 David A. Harley releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
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1. |
The Miles Between
04:35
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The Miles Between (the City and the Heart)
Deep in the Underground
two policemen were patrolling up and down
An old man swearing to himself
Sifted through some rubbish that he'd found
A busker played out fantasies until they moved him off the concourse
And wrote him out of the part
As he whistled up the steps you'd never know that he was falling
In the miles between the city and the heart
Lucy checked her A to Z while the drama was played out
Then took the exit two steps at a time
The street signs and the time and the interview ahead
Were all that occupied her mind
From the top of the steps she saw him sitting by the roadside
Picking aimless chords on his guitar
When their eyes met she knew that he was falling
In the miles between the city and the heart
That night she sat alone in her bedsit in W9
Half-aware of the TV
Determined not to fret about another wasted journey
One more already-filled vacancy
Half-hoping for the phone, even a call from home
To ease the loneliness that crept under her guard
She looked at her bare walls, afraid she might be falling
In the miles between the city and the heart
Impatiently she switched the news off
Lighting one more carefully-rationed cigarette
She gave up trying to write letters, scanned some ads in Time Out
And threw the magazine down on the bed
Praying to someone, somewhere under her breath
"If I'm falling, please don't let me land too hard.
I can't go back now, please save me from the wasteland
In the miles between the city and the heart."
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2. |
The Game of London
03:26
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I left my Northern home to learn the Game of London
At just turned 15 I slipped off the train at Euston
My gear stuffed in a rucksack with the money that I stole
While dad slept off the liquor from the night before
And I didn't look back once when I slipped out
To go and learn the Game of London
I slept rough a night or two when I first came to London
But I soon learned the ways to subsidize my education
By the pawning of my body and the selling of my soul
I learned all the secrets that you say are best untold
And by the lights of the West End
I learned to play the Game of London
In your beds on Sunday morning you may read about the shame of London
Do you dare to blame or pity, or do you envy me my freedom?
I am the secret self that you dare not recognize
Freed of all your inhibitions, I don't need your alibis
With your narrow moral ways
You have not learned the Game of London
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3. |
Coasting 2021
04:58
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Coasting: words and music by David A. Harley
The nights pass slowly, but they pass:
The days are paper-thin.
Life goes on much as usual:
Some games I lose, some I win.
Sometimes I feel that I’m sleepwalking
Through the streets of this grey city,
But then, it’s only been a month or two.
It’s not the first time that I’ve coasted
Through the routine chores of living
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
Today I walked in sunlight though the wind blew cold
Through my coat:
I thought about the coming spring, and I swear somewhere
I felt a twinge of hope.
I don’t expect to hear from you. I guess that’s how it should be:
There’s no point in chasing dreams that won’t come true.
It’s not the first time that I’ve coasted through the aftermath of loving
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
Sometimes I take a weekend walk by these muddy city shores
And old man river talks to me
But I can’t quite understand: my feet stay locked to the dry land
So he drifts on with the seasons out to sea
The weeks pass slowly but they pass
And I drift from phase to phase.
I’m sick of wishing you were here to help me
Through these bleak and restless days.
Sometimes I think I’m waking into another nightmare,
But it passes, as these feelings often do.
It’s not the first time I’ve been lonely, nor the first time I’ve been left,
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
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4. |
Same Old Same Old
02:54
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Same Old Same Old (words & music (c) David A. Harley)
The burglar bells chimed midnight
The sky was pouring down
My feet froze to the catwalk
But my head was homeward-bound
Same old blues
Same old back-street blues
My head is stuffed with nicotine
My throat is full of sand
My bloodstream is pure gin
I can’t remember how to stand
Same old blues
Same old inner-city blues
The all-night bus is AWOL
I can’t get to my bed
There’s a tangle in my fingers
And a jangle in my head
Same old blues
Same old long-gone midnight blues
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5. |
Walls
03:19
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Walls (words & music (c) David Harley)
Last time I saw Jeannine, we lost most of our time
In the company of friends who were neither hers nor mine
Castaways in different cities, working through some breaks
Regretting our vocations, scared of making more mistakes
And we talked of where we’d been
How we’d passed the interim
Since the last time together, building up
A wall of coffee cups and cigarette ends
Keeping our last rendezvous
At least, it looks to be the last we’ll keep
The last time I saw Jeannine, we lost most of our time
Talking of ourselves in terms of once upon a time
Clinging to the wreckage of lives we’d left behind
Hoping for the miracle we lost somewhere in time
And shied away from conversation
Of ourselves but in relation
To each other, but together, building up
A wall of alibis half-spoken
And chances we were missing
At least, from here it seems we’ve missed them all
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6. |
17-Year Itch
02:59
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17-Year Itch (words & music by David A. Harley
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?
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7. |
Heatwave In The City
06:28
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Heatwave In The City - words & music by David A. Harley
There’s a heatwave in the city and the day drags on forever
The tarmac burns through patent leather, clear through to the sole
Ice tumbles through glass as the temperature soars
And the dayshift leaves the nightshift to take over for a while
The city sings at midnight to the well-fed and the civilized
While waiters mop their faces in the kitchen, out of sight
Small change pours in torrents over counters in the bistros
And the moon hangs red and sullen in the dustbowl of the sky
The city is on heat, bare-legged girls in summer dresses
Dodge the lechery of workmen laying cable through the day
But the night turns on the body to sweet pornography
Passions feed on darkness and the body mutes the mind
The city squeals at midnight in its pain and ecstasy
The life-force surges through the veins and soaks the sheets
The couples claw and couple and feed upon each other
And still the hunger rages through the streets
I saw a refugee from Galway with a faceful of stubble
Singing sentimental songs in the underground today
He’s going back to Mother Ireland and the Mountains of Mourne
And he only needs a bob or two to help him on his way
The city whimpers at midnight in its apathy and squalor
From a bench on the Embankment, from a derry in Barnes
From a squat in Deptford, from the winos and the junkies
From the homeless and the helpless, the hopeless and the lost
A refugee from Calvary is preaching anarchy and anger
Through his Multi-Megawatt PA
And when the concert’s over he packs his guitars and prophecies
And goes back to his hotel to drink the night into the day
But out there in the streets the word is out all over
The heat are out for action in New Cross and Ladbroke Grove
The temperature is dropping but the tempers are at flashpoint
And no-one lingers on street corners if they’re walking home alone
The city screams at midnight in the agony of anger
The rocksteady revolution pays its homage to its dead
Where dreadlocks meet deadlock the shock tears up the flagstones
And on their righteous anger the riot squads are fed
The Klan charts fiery crosses cloistered in an upstairs room
The architects of reaction spin their bitter webs
Black and white scrawl their frustrations in blood across the charge sheets
And no-one dares explain the chaos in their heads
The city burns at midnight and the blood runs down the sewers
In the ghettoes and the side-streets where the patriots have been
Squad cars and an ambulance cut through the aftermath
And tomorrow’s front pages unfurl to set the scene
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8. |
Cooling Out
02:52
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Cooling Out (words and music by David A. Harley)
I stay away from dear old dad
He's out of a job and gets to feeling bad
And it don't take much for him to lose his rag
He hits the beer from time to time
And mum takes it out on me and Brian
But when we're not at home we don't much mind
It's their way of cooling out
Of course I haven't worked since I left school
No jobs around, and I'm no fool
I can get more money on the street as a rule
It would really get right up my snout
Stacking crates and washing bottles out
Anyway I like to get out and about
Got me ways of cooling out
Dad thinks mum's got the dropsy bad
There's this smell of glue all round the flat
But I'm away down the road with me blowsing bag
If he asks I'll say Bri's into Airfix kits
And off I'll go with me Evostik
Down the park with me packet of crisps
Got me ways of cooling out
Mum thinks I'm always down with a cold
She says I'm off me nut but then I'm never home
When I'm reeling round on a toluene high
But you've got to do something when it all goes grey
So I'm back down the road with Mick and Dave
The caretaker chases us off the estate
But we're only cooling out
Dad'd go spare if he knew, I bet
But he's too busy drinking himself to death
And mum only sees what she wants to see
That's her way of cooling out…
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9. |
Paper City
05:25
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Paper City (words & music by David A. Harley)
I woke up with my mind’s eye facing your direction:
I looked hard and I saw you needed help.
You’re choking on paper and tape and legislation,
But you can’t produce one thing to help yourself.
Paper city at the heart of a paper empire:
You’ve got strings to pull, you’ve got wires all over the earth.
Sky-climbing parasite, concrete and paper jungle,
You’ve got money to burn, but I know you’d rather freeze to death.
You’ve got stacks of stocks and shares and bonds:
You’ve got telephone and telex,databank and dateline too.
But you can’t produce as much as one lead pencil,
Or a bar of soap, or a rubber band to pull you through.
The media twitch at the flash of a freemason’s handshake:
Speeches are made and the punters gather round;
Paper politicians and faceless company men,
Taking the pulse of an ailing paper pound.
I bet you know just what you’re worth on paper:
When the market crumbles, what will that do to you?
A lot of cold people don’t own the earth they lie in:
Will you be all right in your green-lined paper tomb?
Paper city at the heart of a bankrupt empire:
Your towers get higher as your assets hit new lows.
Nose-diving parasite, I wouldn’t mind you dying,
But you’ll take so many with you when you go.
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10. |
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The Weekends (Are the Worst) - words & music by David Harley
The world has changed since I was born in 1902.
Two World Wars have swept away the world that we once knew:
Two brothers and three sisters , long dead and gone to earth
Our lives were often hard, but now the weekends are the worst.
My old man died just 20 years past.
His health was never good since the Kaiser had him gassed,
But in the end it was cancer that carried him off so fast
I miss him all the time, and the weekends are the worst.
You might say I was lucky, though we never had much cash,
But we had 50-odd good years, more than I’d dare to ask.
I brought up three lovely kids, though another died at birth:
I miss them all a lot, and the weekends are the worst.
I’ve a son in Melbourne, he’s been there since ’62:
I’ve never seen his wife or kids, just a snapshot or two.
My eldest died in the last lot, on a convoy to Murmansk:
It still brings tears to my eyes, and the weekends are the worst.
I’ve a daughter in Glasgow: she writes when she has time,
But that’s a long way off, and I’ve not seen her for a while.
She’s got a son in the army, just been posted to Belfast:
We worry all the time, and the weekends are the worst.
My friends are mostly dead, or else they’ve moved like me
When the street I was brought up in was pulled down in ’63.
Sixty years I’d lived there, child, girl and wife:
Sheltered housing’s not so bad but it can be a lonely life.
Especially since Jim died: we weren’t too bad at first
But now I’m on my own the weekends are the worst.
There’s the club once a week, though it’s just from seven till nine,
And since my fall they only fetch me down from time to time.
There’s my knitting and the TV, for what that might be worth,
But I miss the company, and the weekends are the worst.
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11. |
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Not applicable.
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12. |
Death of a Marriage
04:16
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Death of a Marriage (words & music by David A. Harley)
The blinds are down, the locks are changed,
His cases packed and sent:
Some boxes for collection gather dust.
They’re shaking hands like strangers – that’s all that either dares:
It’s just the death of a marriage and there’s no room left for trust.
The bedroom they shared is advertised to let,
And she’s moved in with the kids.
He’s found himself a bedsit, it’s handy for his job,
But it’s the death of a marriage that was too long on the skids.
He spends a lot of time alone, because the maintenance is crippling
And he hasn’t got the bread to do the town:
He’s restless and confused, and not too certain what he wants,
Feeling guilty, ‘cause he knows he’s let her down.
She’s anxious and she’s angry, and the kids are a pain:
They miss their dad, and mum gets upset easily.
She rings from time to time, and they talk about her problems:
She says he has it easy, and of course he disagrees.
Sometimes they meet for a lunchtime drink:
He babysits, and sometimes takes the kids out for the day.
They both see other people, but they’re scared to get involved:
They’ve both been hurt too much already, and there isn’t much to say.
Sometimes, almost by chance, they spend the night together,
And wonder how they managed on their own,
But sooner or later the arguments take over:
It’s just a dying marriage that refuses to lie down.
They live day-to-day with their crises and neuroses:
Making some sort of adjustment, as best they can they cope,
Huddled round the embers of the love that passed between them,
They see each other growing older, and they’re learning not to hope.
The blinds are down, the locks are changed,
His cases packed and sent:
Some boxes for collection gather dust.
They wave goodbye like strangers – that’s all that either dares:
It’s just the death of a marriage and there’s no room left for trust.
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13. |
Silk and Steel
03:26
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Silk & Steel (words and music by David A. Harley)
Rapid-fire repartee, quicksilver conversation
Tongues that stroked and struck, caressed and clashed.
I remember all too well the arching of your eyebrows
When you pruned my self-importance when you saw that I’d been rash
And left my lines over-extended, and my flanks undefended:
Tactically, I never could compete with you.
But you always held back from the coup de grâce
So finally you met your Waterloo.
In the long years since I left you, I could never quite forget
Through all those other beds and battlefields.
It’s been so long since we crossed blades, and I forget the finer shades
Of the skirmishes where we laid steel to steel.
But the silk of your caress, and your blazing red-haired temper
Left a scar that never really did quite heal.
Like your after-midnight tenderness: somehow across the years
I never quite pull free of silk and steel
And I never quite cut free of silk and steel.
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14. |
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Coasting: words and music by David A. Harley
The nights pass slowly, but they pass:
The days are paper-thin.
Life goes on much as usual:
Some games I lose, some I win.
Sometimes I feel that I’m sleepwalking
Through the streets of this grey city,
But then, it’s only been a month or two.
It’s not the first time that I’ve coasted
Through the routine chores of living
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
Today I walked in sunlight though the wind blew cold
Through my coat:
I thought about the coming spring, and I swear somewhere
I felt a twinge of hope.
I don’t expect to hear from you. I guess that’s how it should be:
There’s no point in chasing dreams that won’t come true.
It’s not the first time that I’ve coasted through the aftermath of loving
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
Sometimes I take a weekend walk by these muddy city shores
And old man river talks to me
But I can’t quite understand: my feet stay locked to the dry land
So he drifts on with the seasons out to sea
The weeks pass slowly but they pass
And I drift from phase to phase.
I’m sick of wishing you were here to help me
Through these bleak and restless days.
Sometimes I think I’m waking into another nightmare,
But it passes, as these feelings often do.
It’s not the first time I’ve been lonely, nor the first time I’ve been left,
And I’ll make it this time too
After you…
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David A. Harley England, UK
David Harley is a former professional musician, administrator, IT security editor, author and researcher, and former much else that is even less impressive. He now lives in Cornwall. More info at whealalice.com
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