Lyrically (I can't pretend that I'm comfortable with all the words, but I might be missing the point?) Musically. Harmonically. In my view, Dylanesque a la 'A Hard Rains...'

Expressionism to the nth degree.

Adler's TOTALITY. Jung's INDIVIDUATION.

The song is powerful and one of Harley's best musical compositions, a real tour de force.

My lay-fan view is that the musical power in the track, comes from that recurring scale. My lay-fan guess is that Harley may have started writing Cavaliers from his playing that scale. If so, he is more likely to have been sitting at the piano (if he had one or access to one, back then).

---

28/10/25 - I've taken the link out. Even though it is not my account, I'm uncomfortable with leaving links in to material that use, in essence, the whole of the song that is available on record - unless the owner of the intellectual work gave express consent. In other words, I'm returning to the status quo as it was prior to 14 February 2005, when YouTube was created. All the best...

---

08/05/25 Edit:

Thanx to all Allied service personnel who gave their lives in preventing the intended Nazi 1000 year Reich (not forgetting non service personnel forming various Resistance). Viva the 70 Allied personnel (plus others also still alive) that were part of tonight's celebration of 80 years since VE! Today, Viva Europe! Whether part of the EU or otherwise! Many European Nations have shared histories, if you look back far enough.


Continuing my views on CAVALIERS:

Harley informed his fans years ago that he had two albums worth of material ready (or almost so) at the time of the EMI signing. The first two albums contain a sound, a feel...Perhaps appropriate that the earliest Cockney Rebel worked on the opening albums because Crocker, Jeffreys and Reame-James had to have also influenced the sound to compliment Harley's earlier compositions. Elliott (a superb drummer) kept on, at the peak of the band.

Cavaliers almost seems to me to be from the same 'family' as Death Trip and Sebastian, for example. Strings were hugely important, for that feel...The drama is there every time one listens to those songs. Stuart Elliott easily had the versatility to transition with Steve, into the more commercial Cockney Rebel....

X

We've just come back from a pleasant day out...

Sasha, who saw/heard Harley with me in 1992 (Nottingham) and 2000 (Oxford) and I were discussing - rather I raised it with her - the lyrics to Cavaliers. The three words that I was least comfortable with - I've always loved the melody - the idea of the 'Cavaliers' (I've read quite a bit about the English Civil War, 1642-1649 - and finally ending in 1653 with the downfall of The Marquis of Montrose - who fought on in Scotland after Charles I was beheaded) - she's clarified for me in a jiffy.

Harley is making a cultural reference to Agatha Christie (from a work written, I think, in 1939). The specific novel changed it's title (I'm still uncomfortable with the change - equally as the original name), though the film production became, And Then There Were None.

We know Steve read extensively during his childhood illness and between operations.

This leaves only nine other words that I'm uncomfortable with in the song - but only because they are shocking - but here we're moving more towards 'A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall' (Dylan, B, 1962) imagery - certainly the way Bryan Ferry's (1973) video conveyed (this was hugely ahead of it's time).

Rod Stewart was right about Steve's lyric writing...he's one of the best writers that broke through in the 1970's...

Further, in my view, this song has the greatest top-line vocal, from my Top 35 Harley songs (Triptych Twenty Twenty Six thread, in the General Discussion Forum, refers).

No other of his songs allows his own singing to reach such sublime highs and lows. It is the Cavalier Cockney Rebel, in both 1974 and the year before. It wouldn't have fit in though, with 'The Human Menagerie of Cockney Rebel' album, it had to be on the follow up, 'The Psychomodo'.

An analogy (or metaphor, I'll let you decide which, if either, is more suitable), for me, in reaching this conclusion is resolved thinking about those films (also from 1973 and 1974 respectfully), starring David Essex - 'That'll Be The Day' and the sequel, 'Stardust'. The first, more optimistic, the concept, a lifestyle; the second, altogether darker.

The Cavalier Attitude, in both 1642 and 1972, the suits, the make-up, the clothes, the times, subversive and politically incorrect.

Cockney Rebel at their most powerful in a pop song. Whilst I am uncomfortable with some of the lyrics, it is those words that allow Harley to theatrically interpret a 'Big Bang' in a pop rock song. It is bipolar and a rage against many wrongs. When Steve writes, "Make mine old time...", is his the perspective, or is it the perspective of the cavalier, or 'The Psychomodo'? I think I get it Steve, and we loved you. X


I've edited my comments in the 'Peer Group Recognition' thread, in the General Discussion Forum, accordingly.

I acquired my Roxy (Music) Greatest Hits songbook (with full sheet music) back in 1979, and my Bowie (even thicker) sheet music songbook in 2008. Either well before the internet or before the internet had such a hold on human activities, as it has today.

If I'd have seen a Harley or Cockney Rebel equivalent, I'd have also bought that (obviously!) I still would today. 'Make Me Smile...' and 'Sebastian' are reasonably easy to obtain in sheet music format, but seemingly not so, 'Cavaliers'.

I'm pretty sure I'd be as excited to have that in front of me, as I was when I first looked at 'Space Oddity' (Bowie, 1969), in that format. Whilst I'm untrained in reading and can't fully read music, I have a reasonable idea what's going on.

I mentioned on an edited opening post of this thread, that recurring scale. That is only one part from three key parts of the structure of 'Cavaliers', it seems to me, obviously the top line vocal (words) is a second, but then, there's the third, the chords.

Now at least some of these are readily available without entering specialist websites.

(I've taken out my former self query about 'line cliche chord progressions' because I don't think that's relevant here - but I do think the recurring scale and top line melody are closely related - the top line seems to be plucked from within that scale, variations of it...I think it's brilliant... I'll carry on looking into it...)

I'm going to have to get to the bottom of this, either one way or the other, before I post again. So for the next week or two, I'm off to tinkle some keys...

On the fifth day since writing this post (and after a couple of sessions on the keyboard) I think E, C# and A are particularly important in the recurring scale and in the chords, E, C#m and A, stand out (but there are others - in each). The chord A is made up of A, C# and E, of course. I've seen reference to 'Cavaliers' being in the key of C#m - but this is one side of music theory I haven't quite grasped. However, I'm reasonably sure that it could be sung in alternative keys of E or A (? Anyone?)

It depends upon, I think, the note that the voice/top line keeps returning to - I have also heard - which will be down to the arrangement of the song or production. I've got the recurring scale down from listening to Cockney Rebel play it and hitting my keys to match the sounds...

Before I can make the final post (for me) of this thread, I need to fully do the same with the top line (which I can now do without putting the track on again) and then I can be confident about the chords....After all, there are only 12 notes (per octave), or more strictly, 7 white keys and 5 black keys, to consider...I will be back....

My view of the 'recurring scale' (at the opening and between verses). If it is a scale, then it's one that, in a couple of places, changes from the ascending, to the descending - and back, but still covers a fantastic full octave, E to E (by notes):

E - B - C# - D# - E - F# - G# - E -

B - C# - D# - E - F# - G# - A - Ab - A -

B - C# - B - C# - D# - E

---

Edit. 23/08/26 Sorry for the typo on the second line, D# (not D) - now corrected. I should have spotted it from the first and third line D#. I only picked up on this because I've been playing around with Bowie's 'The Jean Genie' (1972), 'Life On Mars' (1971) and Steve's 'Judy Teen' (1973/74).. Because I have.the Bowie full sheet music in front of me, I've noticed, in passing that EMI Music Publishing Limited, have a 37.5% share and Chrysalis Music Limited have a 25% ownership share, in Bowie's 'Life On Mars'. At least, that was the case in 2003, when Wise Publications published, 'best of bowie' the book I bought in 2008 (with the sheet music covering 40 Bowie songs). EMI and Chrysalis have had or have links also with Steve's work, which I find interesting.

---

Now, I'm making no mention of the strings intro (which I'd love to see on a sheet music score), nor the placing of maybe three additional chords, besides E, C#m, B, A, F#m, which might be Em, D and Bm (I've seen these referred to elsewhere).

I mentioned in the preceding post of the thread, that the chords E, C#m and A stand out. A couple of quotes via AI;

'In a C# minor chord, the E note is special because it acts as the minor third. This specific interval defines the chord's quality, turning a bright major sound into a sad or moody minor sound. It also ties the chord directly to the key of E major'.

The three notes of the E major chord are E, G# and B (these notes are also found in the recurring scale).

Considering the other minor chord in the main body of the song, F#m, this comprises of the notes F# (the root), A (the third and mediant) and C# (the fifth). Each of these are also found within the recurring scale.

(Corrected my explanation of the third by bringing in the whole triad, 02/09/26 - the 'triad' is a combination of three sounds or notes. Taking the C major chord as an example, the root is the C on the piano, the third is the E key or note and the G key is the fifth. The E key is the third because the root is C, D is not used and E is next up - it is the third note up the scale as the root C is the first note, in the C major chord. The triad as a whole, is the basic unit in Western harmony).

I'm not reproducing the top line in the manner of the recurring scale (or at all), but the song seems so natural, emotive, that this can be done by ear, listening to Steve's voice and matching the notes, maybe by trial and error at first, and by practice.

'Cavaliers' is dramatic, exciting, shocking, melodiously hooky, and it is resolved. For me, it elevates 'The Psychomodo' album, along with 'Sweet Dreams', 'Singular Band' and 'Ritz'. The success of 'Mr Soft' as a single, also helped sales of the album. If only I liked 'Tumbling Down'...I do like the first four minutes of it (the recorded track). To me, this has a feel of three different centuries, obviously the 20th, but also the 17th (in this sense, this one 'associates' with 'Cavaliers') and 18th... X

---

My own unconscious / recent dream/ thoughts over the past few days / further tribute to Steve, Bryan and Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)

Alternative titles:

What Evolution Is... or, It's Falling In On Itself (Tumbling Down)

It's falling in on itself
Makes nonsense of billionaires
Heavy dark old fashioned football
Why won't you move?
Why won't you go?

It's falling in on itself
Ferry sang, 'Nothing lasts forever'
Makes nonsense of the longevity of youth
Why won't you stay?
Why won't you groove?

It's falling in on itself
The immovable temperate zone
Thirty five days at thirty degrees plus
Makes nonsense of rampant laissez-faire
Why can't you change?

It's falling in on itself
Harley sang, 'Make mine old time'
Makes nonsense of the relentless pursuit
Though vindicates the gone tomorrow
What evolution is.

Jem H (2026)

Talk about Unfettered?

Ferry, Simpson, Mackay, O'List (shame he had a punch up with the drummer), Eno, Thompson, live recording, the first two songs from the Peel session on 4 January 1972, juxtaposed with...

Harley, Elliott, Crocker, Reame-James, Jeffreys and CAVALIERS...the lot of them...

Just brilliant...

As Harley said in 1976 - Sounds - (about the psychomodo...thread next door refers), the most EXCITING album of (their) first three!