Roy Harper (born 12 June 1941) is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter … Read Full Bio ↴Roy Harper (born 12 June 1941) is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s. He has released a large catalogue of albums as an artist (22 studio albums and 12 live albums) and his influence has been acknowledged by many musicians including Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin (who named the song "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" after him), Pink Floyd (who invited him to sing guest lead vocals on their song "Have a Cigar"), Pete Townshend of The Who, Kate Bush, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who is on record as saying that Harper has been his "primary influence as an acoustic guitarist and songwriter".
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.
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.
October Twelfth
Roy Harper Lyrics
We have lyrics for these tracks by Roy Harper:
1948ish The lemmings push their pens and rush In hoards of crashing…
Acapulco Gold I'm getting rolled on my Acapulco gold Waitin' for my lady…
Ageing Raver Stain-glass people filling the sooty city but he's sleeping …
All Ireland Goodbye free Ireland Try again soon The tommies and sirens…
All You Need Is I gave my love, a daisy A third eye in my…
Angel Of The Night When my madness comes It comes in waves I get paralysed …
Another Day The kettle's on, the sun has gone Another day She offers me…
Bad Speech I was not put here - (by anyone) By anyone in…
Bank of the Dead Lonely faces Empty spaces Hiding places Nowhere to be Gr…
Big Fat Silver Aeroplane Big fat silver aeroplane is shufflin' through the sky Full …
Black Clouds Black clouds are hanging From a patch of blue sky We're wa…
Blackpool The rain falls like diamonds Pinpricks the still waters An…
Breakfast With You As soon as I saw you I knew half your mind Walking…
Burn The World I am the light I am the way You see me night I…
Burn the World Part 1 I am the light I am the way You see me night I…
Cardboard City Cardboard city Who gives a shit Cardboard city It's a hit…
Casualty Twenty years of rock and roll Up and down the greasy…
Cherishing The Lonesome Here comes the patter of rain on my window I've woken…
China Girl Pretty little china girl Tiny oriental pearl Hold me in yo…
Come The Revolution Come the revolution You′ll be swept away On the harness of y…
Come To Bed Eyes All of a sudden He wasn't with you Both of us stayed…
Come Up And See Me All of a sudden I've taken a swerve Stood in the…
Commune I thought I heard the sound of my name and…
Cora Oh Cora, oh Cora I never knew your head Cora for that…
Davey Davey, oh Davey With seashells on our ears We spun a web…
Death or Glory? Death or glory? Baby you and me No warning, no mercy Off wit…
Descendants of Smith He woke up in a crashing din Half in a dream…
Desert Island Gonna paint my room like a desert island With yellow sand…
Don't You Grieve I was the master's best friend He was the only man…
Drawn To The Flames I've loved you You've loved me Just for one split second …
Drugs For Everybody Can't you see the future in drugs for everybody? Can't you…
Duty If the six billion On the planet To a woman Decided That…
East of the Sun D G F#m The bumble bees stumble D G the butterflies tumble F…
Elizabeth Stood on the street in the face of a holocaust With…
Evening Star There's a lady who knows you know All the to's and…
Exercising Some Control I've got a dog he's like a two ton frog I…
Feeling All the Saturday I've been walking all over the place, now I'm walking…
First Thing In The Morning Yesterday the poppies sprang From bodies of complaint Hero…
For Longer Than It Takes I walk in your footsteps love When you're not even there Y…
Forbidden Fruit Baby, won't you play with me ? Games that no one else…
Forever Not talkin' 'bout a year No not three or four I don't…
Forget Me Not Can you remember, my love, the day we began ? The grass…
Francesca Hey Francesca you gave me no warning hey Francesca, tiptoes…
Frozen Moment The process of my words profane The poems I still breathe …
Garden of Uranium There's fuel in a hand shake And power in a smile Energy…
Ghost Dance Plastic money flexidream And comfort for the preacher Keep…
Girlie Oh girlie with your brown eyes And your long flowing hair …
Goldfish Little goldfish in your bowl I've dug you all day long Yel…
Goodbye Your conscience rolls in torrents down each side of your…
Government Surplus The young men in my country They have no place Surplus to…
Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children Grown ups are just silly children, anybody can see Baby, gr…
Hallucinating Light Locked in mortal combat as the future shadows loom The…
Hangman Last night I wasn't sleeping I knew it was my last I've…
Hell's Angels Hell's Angels if you think you need a better deal why…
Highgate Cemetery Come and be buried with me Up in Highgate Cemetery It's a…
Highway Blues Take a look down your highway Tell me what d'you see Well…
Hope When you look at me From your own century I may seem…
Hors D'Oeuvres The judge sits on his great assize Twelve men wise with…
How Does It Feel How does it feel to be completely unreal How does it…
I Am A Child I am a child I am a sanctuary Wild at my mother's…
I Hate the White Man Far across the ocean In the land of look and see There…
I Still Care Even though you drive me crazy Even though we never last Tho…
I Wanna Be Part Of The News I wanna be part of the news I wanna see my…
I'll See You Again No good pretending girl You were for spending The rest of …
I'm In Love With You Time was when you haunted me In my every stride Fantasy fo…
If If it was right to be believing, And write his name…
In a Beautiful Rambling Mess I was taking the air one sunny evening Watching everything b…
Jack Of Hearts I dream of a girl The sweetest reflection of earth Unclutter…
Kangaroo Blues Confusion rains down on us all From the blistering heights o…
Laughing Inside When I first saw you I tried to ignore you Because I…
Legend I heard the song birds singing in the trees above…
Liquorice Alltime Slime filth bildge and alienation live in the world experien…
Little Lady I once held a lantern of love in my hands. She…
Looney On The Bus Harper Roy Loony On The Bus Loony On The Bus You don′t mind…
Magic Woman Liberation Reshuffle I said, "Wait a minute lady, Aren′t you the one I've…
Maile Lei You can only explain the pain when you've got it The…
Male Chauvinist Pig Blues I came from a house where a war, was run And…
Man Kind Down in the deep recesses Of my torture I am spreadeagled by…
Mañana Manana Until we meet again I'll say manana I'm practically i…
McGoohan's Blues Nicky my child he stands there with the wind in…
Me and My Woman I never know what kind of day it is on…
Miles Remains Miles away and gone Half my life passed on A spirit now I…
Mr. Station Master Oh mister station master i dont dig you And i'm going…
My Friend So now you tell me that you're leaving, my friend And…
Naked Flame The naked flames of cracking dawn come searing through with…
Next To Me I lost the only reason that I ever had I did…
Nineteen Forty-Eightish The lemmings push their pens and rush In hoards of crashing…
No Change Well the generations come Hoy-polloy or chewing gum Bad ma…
Nobody's Got Any Money in the Summer Nobody's got any money in the Summer Oh dear me, what…
North Country If you're travelin' in the north country fair, Where the wi…
Nowhere To Run I'm a rabbit on fire on fire with mascared eyes I'm a…
Old Faces Old faces acquaintances Re-appearing disguised as is Blue …
On Summer Day I thought I saw a swallow land Upon my hand on…
Once Earth for all creatures A thought for all (wo)men Right fo…
Once in the Middle of Nowhere We had various kinds of tape-recordings: concerts, popular m…
One for All Soft and low the sun is setting Deep into the sky…
One Man Rock and Roll Band Welcome home, you total stranger Welcome to the Fountainhead…
One More Tomorrow There was a time When you ran after me And we could…
One of Those Days in England verse riff: hit bass D string, then O-P (verse riff) Q One…
One of Those Days In England (Parts 2-10) Every Wednesday morning, at about the hour of ten I give…
Pinches Of Salt Arthur read stories he got from the shelf In the gingerbrea…
Playing Games I wonder how I'm gonna be able to live With you…
Playing Prison When you say that I have done it before So it…
Referendum There was a man from Muddlebro' whose problems he lay…
Sail Away Well the bozos talk of dawn But it feels like Monday…
Same Old Rock All along the ancient wastes the thin reflections spin That…
Same Shoes I see pictures of the porsche Smashed and twisted out of…
Sgt. Sunshine Sunrise, The milk man rides his clanging cow The sun explo…
She's the One She's the one She's so gone She's the one who throws the…
Short and Sweet You ask what is the quality of life Seeking to justify…
Sleeping at the Wheel Through the window Just a wall Shapes are forming Blackbi…
Song of the Ages there's a house on a hillside in a picture book where…
Sophisticated Beggar I'm just a sophisticated beggar living underneath your summe…
South Africa Once I was anothers lover Now I am my own Trying to…
Square Boxes Square boxes to live in Obnoxious, disgusting We come home…
Squares Boxes Square boxes to live in Obnoxious, disgusting We come home i…
Stan All over town the dreamers have landed starting a brand new…
Still Life Jackdaw watches sunset From the telegraph pole At five to …
Ten Years Ago Well, the generations come Hoy-polloy or chewing gum Bad man…
The Apology I'm sorry So sorry Sorry About the weather I'm sorry Ab…
The Black Cloud of Islam I'm sick to the teeth of the news on the…
The Dream Society Dreamer..dreaming dreams I put my head on the pillow and cl…
The Fly Catcher As I walked over North Botley copse I saw a fine…
The Fourth World It's high time to fly In the face of the lie It…
The Game There's an owl in the valley fixing his prey He's not…
The Lord's Prayer A) Poem B) Modal Song parts I to IV C) Front Song D)…
The Methane Zone Early one morning I was on my way to sleep Early one…
The Plough The demons catch me On the stair And I don't know where,…
The Same Old Rock All along the ancient wastes the thin reflections spin That …
The Spirit Lives Where once were men are now but sheep -a fiction and…
The Tallest Tree The earth is possessed By the curse of the west Who devour…
The Unknown Soldier I am an old soldier I've been in the wars Backwards and…
The War Came Home Tonight Left right left right The war came home tonight Set alight…
These Last Days These last days, I've never known in so many ways Looking…
Tom Tiddler's Ground I thought you had passed, but you caught me at…
Twelve Hours of Sunset Sweeping skies and breezey greens, can maybe show us what…
Twentieth Century Man Misty blue halos in your deep sea eyes Kindling the fire…
Up the 'pool I'm going up the 'pool from down the smoke below To…
Waiting For Godot Part Zed Youth went a wooing Fleet of the feet Ran the horizons Li…
Watford Gap Just about a mile from where the motorways all merge You…
When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease When the day is done and the ball has spun…
Why Why do you have to Gain so much To lose the world?…
Why? Why do you have to Gain so much To lose the world?…
Winds of Change Deng Xiaoping What's in your head Tearing your people's id…
Wishing Well Finjo ser invisível Pra não ter que te encarar Afogo na pisc…
Woman Spoken: This is official right now In 4 minutes or less We g…
Work Of Heart I. No One Ever Gets Out Alive II. Two Lovers in…
You As soon as I saw you i knew half your…
You Don't Need Money Nobody's got any money in the Summer Oh dear me, what…
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conner vickrage
Personally the power of this song is indescribable! I always look forward to hearing this one
Rina Lore
🌹This song's lyrics are as🔮prevalent today as when✍🏻written.
🎼🎓Roy Harper's a Genius.
🇨🇦✌🏻🎶💔(+🇺🇦)✨🌎💫
William Gibson
When all is said and done Roy is at heart a folk singer. He is a contemporary of such legends as John Martyn and Nick Drake and he can match them melody for melody and lyric for lyric.
Coogan
HATS OFF TO ROY HARPER !!!!!!
Canucklehead
One of my very favorite voices and one of the very best songwriters.
Mhic MacGlashan
A great favourite of mine. Splendid guitar.
wizardsk801
Just stumbled by this today. Love it
Robbie
Then you will love the album
Tracey Wilkinson
Harper the legend
Angela Salisbury
man for our time then...man for our time now