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"A Friend for Life" is a single by British singer-songwriter Steve Harley in 2001. It was Harley's first release with new material since the 1996 album ''Poetic Justice''. The single was firstly released as a non-album single, although the same version of the song would appear on the Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel 2005 studio album ''The Quality of Mercy.'' The single peaked at #125 in the UK and lasted a total of four weeks in the Top 200 around May 2001. It also reached #45 on the UK Independent Singles chart.〔http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/independent-singles-chart/20010520/130/〕 In 2015 the song was covered by British singer/musician Rod Stewart for his album ''Another Country''. ==Background== "A Friend for Life" was written by Harley and Cockney Rebel's ex-guitarist Jim Cregan, where both musicians were credited with the writing of the music, whilst the lyrics were credited solely to Harley. The song would be produced solely by Cregan, although on ''The Quality of Mercy'' album, the song would have production credits to both Harley and Cregan.〔http://www.allcdcovers.com/download/5ee1ee1f7a9d29a3c437934be81a1863/44312/bd53c1d59796425f01e08cc38ab8cfc0/51d31c04/steve_harley_cockney_rebel_the_quality_of_mercy_2005_retail_cd-back〕 The song was created when Harley visited Cregan's home in Los Angeles. In 2015 Harley recalled: ''"I was in Los Angeles, staying at Jim's (then) house. We wrote most days and that tune came from one lazy afternoon's messing about. I wrote the entire lyric on the flight home."'' The song was recorded at friend and songwriter Mike Batt's house, who would arrange and conduct the song's strings quartet whilst also playing keyboards. The recording inspired Batt to record extensively at his home and most of Katie Melua's recordings have been made there. As Harley and the other personnel were happy with the finished recording, no changes were required when it came to adding the song onto ''The Quality of Mercy'' album. Additionally, the CD single was mastered by Doug Shearer at Sanctuary Mastering in London.〔http://images.45worlds.com/steve-harley-safe-intrinsic-cs.jpg〕 For his online diary on his official website, Harley had announced in January 2001: ''"We are pretty sure that "A Friend for Life" will be released mid-March. It should, with a little luck and the efforts of a good plugger, start getting airplay around the country towards the end of February. I can't in all honestly seriously expect a hit record. It will not be released by EMI or Sony, but by a small independent label with a good heart and much belief in the product. But airplay will help sell tickets for concerts, anyway, and to play is my first love, of course."''〔http://web.archive.org/web/20061215161831/http://www.steveharley.com/diary-jan-mar-2001.html〕 In December 2003, Cregan was interviewed by Graham Edmundson, with "A Friend for Life" being mentioned. Cregan revealed ''"We did "A Friend For Life" together which was a real change for me because suddenly instead of Steve being the producer I was. I thought, "this could be strange" because he had always been the man in charge. Was he going to let go of the reins? How hard was that going to be? But it was fine - he obviously put his two cents in. We have a couple of other songs which haven't been fully recorded yet."''〔http://www.harleyfanzone.com/Interviews/Cregan03.htm〕 In August 2013, Harley played at the Rewind Festival 2013 and was interviewed after his slot in the show. When asked ''"Talking of the songs that they didn't know, going into your back catalogue, what would you say would be the hidden gem that very few would have heard of but you would encourage us to go and listen to?"'' Harley replied ''"Oh that's a good question. A hidden gem? There's a song called "A Friend for Life", which I sang today. It touches people of a certain age. A lot of my audience are grandparents, 50s and 60s. It touches them."''〔http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6O6gbzhIIY〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「A Friend for Life」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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