“We all had nothing but it was shared”
The title track of this collection is the most personal song of the lot. I came up with the basis of the tune in late 2016. As is often the case the various parts were snippets that I’d jammed around with separately for quite a while. I then recorded a version of it with Indian Tablas, synths, electric guitars and the whole kitchen sink. The working title was “African Queen” and I struggled over a few months trying to base the lyrics on this great old Hepburn and Bogart film. In the end I put it to one side and moved onto the next song.
My next project involved me putting music to a clip of my father making hay in 1966. I posted this up to YouTube and Facebook and it was an immediate hit (Hit in my terms, meaning tens of thousands of people watched the video). We are lucky to have 90 minutes of cine film from 1966 that catalogues a year on the farm. This film was taken by a lady called Doctor Lowe who was a friend of my Grandfather on her new Super 8mm cine camera. (We would never have been able to afford such a luxury) This got me thinking that I could maybe do the same with clips of him working on the old harvester and my uncle John with his grain wagon.
I got to work on the lyrics and they easily flowed over a 24 hour period. In the 70’s and 80’s I had the time of my life on the farm working with my dad, brother, uncles and cousins. We all mucked in together and my dad is fond of saying “We all had nothing and shared it”. Anyone who has had the privilege of working on a farm at harvest time will tell you it’s hard work but great fun.
I now needed some music to go with it and I returned to the “African Queen” instrumental. It was going to work but I thought that it needed to be a more modern take on a mid 60’s sound rather than the synth based track I had already got. So I started from scratch to record the music and very quickly settled on a Rickenbacker 12 string for the opening lines. From then on everything fell into place. This got me to Christmas 2017. I premiered the video and song to my family on Christmas Day and there was tears all round. Whilst I’d been working on the track the legend that was my Uncle John had died of a cardiac arrest whilst taking hay to Carlisle market. He had crashed into the motorway central reservation but managed to stop without hitting anyone else.
I decided that this was the song that was going to be my main project for the first half of 2018. This led to live dates, which I hadn’t been doing for at least 15 years and the live dates then led on to the More Music Monday FaceBook live sessions that we’ve been doing since July 2018.
The song name checks my Dad, my Brother Neil, Cousin Adrian, Uncle John and my mother. If the song had been longer I would’ve included many more relatives who toiled alongside us.
I hope you enjoy this song.
Stuart
Bringing the Harvest Home HQ Audio Download
Bringing the Harvest Home
The corn is high,
the sun is out, burning off the dew
Takes me back to a time in life
When all my world was new
And if the truth was known
We were innocent and good
And the seeds were sown
Under a blanket of love
Chorus
These were the day of our lives
We are the sons of the vale
With hard work and Yorkshire pride
We’re bringing the harvest home
Brother Neil, Adi too
Uncle John and his baling crews
Father’s back drying in the shed
And Mother’s making sure he’s fed
And with one eye out for the weather
We get the barley in
And a feast is sure to follow
If the rain begins
These were the day of our lives
We are the sons of the vale
With hard work and Yorkshire pride
We’re bringing the harvest home
Home is where, everyone cared
We all had nothing, but it was shared
Home, home again
That’s where I’m going to be
In an endless summertime
And you will be with me
And with one eye out for the weather
We’ll get the barley in
And a feast is sure to follow
When the rain begins
These were the day of our lives
We are the sons of the vale
With hard work and Yorkshire pride
We’re bringing the harvest home
You gotta know it
We’re going to grow it
You only reap what you sow
And bring your harvest home
Written by Stuart Wright
© Copyright 2018