Few survivors from the golden age of British folk-rock have kept their reputations intact. Of the generation of troubadours who came of age in the folk clubs of London in the mid-1960s, some have passed away, others have surrendered to the regurgitation of the blandest form of acoustic folk music. But among the survivors, there is one figure whose body of work, comprising 23 studio LPs and almost as many live and compilation releases, has come to stand for a particularly single-minded form of integrity. That man is Roy Harper.
Now officially ‘retired’, and living in a secluded corner of Ireland, Harper has recently been hailed as a key influence by a much younger generation of devoted starsailors who instinctively recognise his innovations, his refusal to compromise and his visionary world view. It is rumoured that Joanna Newsom insisted she’d only play her recent UK shows if he would support her. The likes of Fleet Foxes, Joanna Newsom, and Jim O’Rourke are avowed fans; and in previous decades he has enjoyed public endorsements and tributes from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and many more.
Biography
Born in 1941, Harper lost his mother within a few weeks of his birth and was brought up in the outskirts of Manchester by his father and stepmother, a Jehovah's Witness. Harper developed a deep hatred of organised religion and ran away, aged 15, to join the Royal Air Force. The rigid discipline required did not suit him. In order to be discharged early he pleaded insanity and was committed to an institution where he received ECT. A former participant in the skiffle revolution in the mid-50s, around 1964 Harper found himself joining the stream of bohemian rambler-buskers hitching and singing their way around Europe and North Africa. On his return to Britain he pitched in to the London coffee-house folk scene and secured a residence at legendary folk club Les Cousins, where he was spotted by the obscure Strike label.
Beginning with 1966’s Sophisticated Beggar, Harper’s music has consistently rattled the cage of received ideas. His versatile, poetic sensibility was employed in a wide range of song styles from romantic love songs to late-night mantras to blackly comedic throwaway numbers. A brilliant, percussive guitar stylist in his own right, he extended the form of folk music over the next few years, allowing himself the space to stretch out in long, lyrically dense and mantrically repetitive odysseys of poetic thought. “I was writing long poems in the 50s,” says Harper, “none of which unfortunately made it past the first few moves of living quarters. My first inspiration was John Keats’s Endymion.”
The first inklings of his expansive approach on record came on the ten minute “Circle” on 1967’s Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith – produced by Shel Talmy – and was vastly ramped up on the following year’s Folkjokeopus, which contained an 18 minute “McGoohan’s Blues”, named after the lead actor of TV’s The Prisoner and whose enigmatic verses were laced with anti-establishment rants.
By this time Harper was a favourite at the outdoor Hyde Park Festivals, where he was exposed to the wider attention of the underground scene. Now produced and managed by Peter Jenner, and signed to EMI’s progressive label Harvest, his 1969 LP Flat Baroque And Berserk reflected his reputation as a bloodyminded, truculent troubadour, reflecting turbulent times with anger, wrath and sardonic humour, singing – like the mistle thrush after which his next opus would be named – into the eye of the storm.
Stormcock (1971) is generally regarded as a masterpiece: a sprawling but focused suite of four lengthy tracks which explored the inner space of Abbey Road Studio to rhapsodic effect. Like Astral Weeks refracted through the pages of OZ magazine, the songs span an enormous spectrum of experience, from the frontline of social unrest to the secluded, birdsong-infested lanes of the English countryside. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page added guitar, disguised as ‘S Flavius Mercurius’, highlighting a relationship with the group that had begun at the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper”, an incoherent, gutsy blues workout on Led Zeppelin III, paid tribute to the singer’s status as a beacon of integrity for the underground scene.
Harper enjoyed a special relationship with Led Zeppelin, and his subsequent albums began to move into harder rock territory with the addition of various key collaborators including, as well as Page, orchestral arranger/keyboardist David Bedford, David Gilmour, Chris Spedding, Bill Bruford and John Paul Jones. Lifemask (1972) contained several songs written for the film Made, directed by John Mackenzie, which starred Harper as an edgy, high-maintenance rock star. Valentine (1974) was launched with a gig featuring Page and Bedford plus Ronnie Lane and Keith Moon. He was invited to sing lead on the single “Have A Cigar” from Pink Floyd’s classic album Wish You Were Here (1975). In the same year Harper released HQ, a rock based album notable for the closing track, “When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease”, an elegiac hymn to unchanging ways and mortality which BBC DJ John Peel insisted should be played in the event of his death.
With the dawn of the 1980s Harper took part in a musical exchange with Kate Bush, who guested on The Unknown Soldier (1980), while Harper returned the favour by appearing on Bush’s hit single “Breathing”. Harper rode the unsteady waves of the music industry during the early 1980s but kept up a productive output that saw his music taking on a prophetic role, expressing more explicit concerns with environmental disaster, religious fundamentalism, urban poverty and the first Gulf War, on releases like Once (1990) and The Dream Society (1998), through to his most recent studio album, The Green Man (2000). In 1994, exhibiting typical desire for autonomy and self-sufficiency, he set up his own record label, Science Friction, to curate and rerelease his entire back catalogue, along with a clutch of CDs of live and unreleased material covering his entire career. In his book, The Passions Of Great Fortune (2003), he published his complete lyrics together with photos, annotations and re-evaluations of every one of his songs.
With a new series of reissues in 2011, Roy Harper’s incredible, visionary catalogue of work enters the digital domain in time for his music to take on a new, urgent and timely appeal, in an age in which the hypocrisies and injustices he railed against are more present than ever before. It’s been a damned good innings and he’s still not out.
Death or Glory?
Roy Harper Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Baby you and me
No warning, no mercy
Off with his head
She said, said she
Death or glory?
All the bliss, all the memory
Not even one last kiss
One last kiss
Stick on the ice
Fast forward, out of town
Drunk me dry, threw me away
Strength is down
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread
Having once turned 'round walks on
And turns no more his head
For he knows that close behind
A fearful fiend doth tread
Death or glory?
Baby, you and me
Let's get into battle
Win us both a V.C.
There's nothing left here, we can lose
Everything to win
We lived in heaven hearts and minds
We can make it back again
Our strength, strength will be then
Death or glory?
Baby, down to you
Death or glory?
Baby, up to me
Get stick on the ice
Fast forward out of town
Drunk me dry, threw me away
My strength was gone
We lived in heaven
Hearts and minds
We can make it there again
Baby, yeah, yeah, yeah
Our strength will be then
The song "Death or Glory" by Roy Harper is a poignant composition that revolves around a relationship that has reached the point of collapse. The lyrics describe the intensity of the couple's emotions as they confront the possibility of losing everything. The title phrase "Death or Glory" signifies the amount of risk involved in the choices they must make to save their relationship.
The opening verse sets the tone for the song with the lines "Death or glory? / Baby you and me / No warning, no mercy / Off with his head / She said, said she." This sets the stage for the all-or-nothing dichotomy that dominates the song. The chorus highlights the couple's determination to fight for their love through the lines "Death or glory? / All the bliss, all the memory / You threw us out the window / Not even one last kiss / One last kiss."
The second verse uses metaphors such as "Stick on the ice" and "Fast forward out of town" to describe the haste in which they have lost their love. The final verse emphasizes the determination to recapture the love they once shared through the lines "We lived in heaven hearts and minds / We can make it back again / Our strength, strength will be then."
Line by Line Meaning
Death or glory?
Do we want to succeed at all costs or perish in our attempt?
Baby you and me
We are in this together.
No warning, no mercy
We don't care what happens to others, we only care about our own success.
Off with his head
We'll do whatever it takes to get what we want, even if it means causing harm to others.
She said, said she
The decision to go for 'death or glory' was made by someone else, not us.
All the bliss, all the memory
We had a wonderful past together.
You threw us out the window
You caused us to lose everything we had together.
Not even one last kiss
You didn't even say goodbye.
One last kiss
I wish we had shared one final embrace.
Stick on the ice
Stay focused and be determined.
Fast forward, out of town
Let's leave this place and move on to better things.
Drunk me dry, threw me away
You took advantage of me, drained me of all I had and then discarded me like trash.
Strength is down
I am weak and vulnerable.
Like one that on a lonesome road
I feel alone and lost on this difficult path.
Doth walk in fear and dread
I am afraid of what the future holds.
Having once turned 'round walks on
I keep moving forward despite my fear.
And turns no more his head
I refuse to look back and dwell on the past.
For he knows that close behind
I am aware that danger is lurking.
A fearful fiend doth tread
I know that the road ahead is full of obstacles and challenges.
Let's get into battle
Let's fight for what we want.
Win us both a V.C.
Let's achieve something great together.
There's nothing left here, we can lose
We have nothing to lose by taking a risk.
Everything to win
We have everything to gain if we succeed.
We lived in heaven hearts and minds
We had a magical time together in the past.
We can make it back again
We can recreate that happiness if we work together.
Our strength, strength will be then
We will be strong again if we stand by each other.
Baby, down to you
I trust you to lead us to success.
Baby, up to me
It's up to me to do my part and contribute.
My strength was gone
I was weak and helpless.
Baby, yeah, yeah, yeah
I still believe in us and our potential for success.
Our strength will be then
We will be powerful and unstoppable once again.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: ROY HARPER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind