Some Housman Settings on Substack

1. Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries (remix)

A demo track — originally from an album of demo tracks that I may never be in a fit state to record properly. The raw guitar/vocal version was previously posted on Inspiration Point. However, this is a remix with some guitar and synth overdubbing that I quite like.

This 1917 poem by A.E. Housman takes longer to explain than it does to read.

It refers to the British Expeditionary Force, which German propagandists referred to as ‘mercenaries’ because at the outbreak of war, Britain’s army consisted of professional soldiers rather than conscripts or the later volunteers of ‘Kitchener’s Army‘. The BEF was practically wiped out by 1916.

A poem by Hugh MacDiarmid, ‘Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries’ takes a very different view, regarding the BEF as ‘professional murderers’. I’m staying out of that debate. For now, anyway. This setting was originally intended for a suite of settings (including some Kipling) that was intended to lessen any residual jingoism. I’m still thinking about that one.

Words by A.E. Housman. Music, acoustic guitars, synth and vocal by me.

These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

2. Severn Shore

A setting of Housman’s cheerful story of fratricide

I dreamed last night I was working on my ‘Tears of Morning’ album. Listening to it again, I probably should… Still, here’s my setting of A Shropshire Lad VIII from that album, which I’m fairly happy with. I thought Severn Shore was a slightly more attractive title.

‘FAREWELL to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.

‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill,
By now the blood is dried;
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still
And my knife is in his side.

‘My mother thinks us long away;
’Tis time the field were mown.
She had two sons at rising day,
To-night she ’ll be alone.

‘And here ’s a bloody hand to shake,
And oh, man, here ’s good-bye;
We ’ll sweat no more on scythe and rake,
My bloody hands and I.

‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,
And a love to keep you clean,
And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,
At racing on the green.

‘Long for me the rick will wait,
And long will wait the fold,
And long will stand the empty plate,
And dinner will be cold.’

3. On Bredon Hill (Summertime on Bredon)

A rerecording of my setting of the poem from Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’. Still needs work, but I think the vocal has more character than the version previously recorded and released.

XXI - BREDON HILL*

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
“Come all to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray.”
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
“Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.”

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon
And still the steeples hum.
“Come all to church, good people,”--
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.

Music by A.E. Housman. Melody, guitar and vocal by David Harley.

Probably more of these to come.