Obit: Sydney Carter (1915-2004)

Subject: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Little Robyn
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:25 PM

Our radio news has just announced that Sydney Carter Has died.
Does anyone know any more?
For those that don't recognise the name, he wrote Lord of the Dance - the song that so many people know and love (and sing and dance to). He wrote many other songs that were topical in their time and he also sang them himself at folk clubs and on the radio.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:38 PM

That's sad, but it's not sad. He was a lovely man, as well as a great maker of songs, and a fine thinker and writer as well. I'm sure he'd have felt it was time he moved on.

It'd be a better world if there werte more people like him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:41 PM

Talented chap. Once had a nice chat with him 30 odd year's ago. His song about mixed up( i.e.confused)middle-aged men rings more and more true as the years pass by.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:45 PM

G'day Little Robyn,

I'm sad to hear that he has gone ... but he had been suffering from Alzheimer's for some years now - after a career where he was still gigging into his eighties! I first met him when he was in Australia and appeared at the (Australian) National Folk Festival in 1972 or ~3 ... then he sang later on in Sydney. I gave hime some of my photographs of his concerts and we briefly corresponded.

I have always loved his songs ... and supplied many to 'Catters - but his latter-day publishers "Stainer & Bell" won't let them be posted on lists like the Digital Tradition (our DT) ... thus continuing the unfortunate trend for groups to record badly remembered version - claim them as "Trad" - and pay no royalties!

Ah well, at least it's no longer cheating Syd ... only the fools at the helm of "Stainer & Bell"!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Little Robyn
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:51 PM

Hi Bob. Maybe now we can slip the correct versions into threads here, without having them in the DT??
Robyn

Subject: Lyr Add: ONE MORE STEP (Sydney Carter)
From: Jeanie
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 05:56 PM

I'll second everything you have said, McGrath. Here is my favourite of his songs, about that very thing: Moving On

ONE MORE STEP

One more step along the world I go,
one more step along the world I go,
from the old things to the new
keep me travelling along with you:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.

Round the corners of the world I turn,
more and more about the world I learn,
all the new things that I see
you'll be looking at along with me:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.

As I travel through the bad and good,
keep me travelling the way I should;
where I see no way to go
you'll be telling me the way, I know:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.

Give me courage when the world is rough,
keep me loving though the world is tough;
leap and sing in all I do,
keep me travelling along with you:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.

You are older than the world can be,
you are younger than the life in me;
ever old and ever new,
keep me travelling along with you:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me travelling along with you.


Sydney Carter 6th May 1915 - 13th March 2004

*   *    *

Bon Voyage, Sydney Carter, on the next step of your journey, and thank you.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Jeanie
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:01 PM

I was typing out the lyrics from my copy of 'Baptist Praise and Worship' (publ.Oxford University Press 1992) while Bob Bolton was posting his thread, and I hadn't read it. I was unaware of the problems about posting them. Apologies if this causes difficulties - please delete them if necessary, Joe or somebody.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:13 PM

G'day Jeanie and Little Robyn,

Quite a lot of the lyrics requested should still be alive in the threads where I have posted them ... but not in the DT.

I hate to see wonderful writers like Sydney Carter cheated of their credit by being lumped as "anon"/"trad" ... as much as it may be a tribute to their solid tradition of their compositions.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:21 PM

There's no problem with having the words in the threads, just on the DT. Trying to understand why that is the case is a bit hard, but that's how it works.

I think that posting a link in the DT to a thread with the lyrics whenever there was a problem with posting the lyrics in the DT would probably be considered a no no.

Here's a link to a post with another of Sydney's best songs in it, John Ball;
and here is a link to anither, George Fox; and here is Julian of Noirwich.

I'm sure there are more of them around in the Mudcat, and also elsewhere on the net. Maybe other people wpoidl,like to hunt up a few more.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Willa
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:37 PM

One of my favourites: http://www.crixa.com/muse/unionsong/u115.html

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:43 PM

Well that settles SOME of the songs I will be doing at Dog Days Afternoon tomorrow. I wonder if the Torygraph will do an Obit .

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:50 PM

Down Below

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: vectis
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:53 PM

Sad day. I'm still singing a few of his songs and they still get a good reception.

Subject: Lyr Add: LIKE THE SNOW (Sydney Carter)
From: Micca
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 07:12 PM

I searched for a certain Sydney Carter song for many years, I heard Martin Carthy sing it on a Sunday afternoon TV show that had Carter and Nadia Cattouse as the principle performers,and it stuck(or part of it did) I asked Martin at a festival for the words, and he said he couldnt help as he had only learned it for that performance and didnt keep it in his repetoire. I found it through a link provided in the Mudcat a few years ago and it seems very apropos at this time.
Mr Carter may you find, beyond the door, that which you would wish for,

Like the Snow
By Sydney Carter

Tell me, where did Helen go?
Here is where she had her dwelling.
She has vanished like the snow -
Where, there is no way of telling;
Here is where she had her dwelling.
All the while they come and they go -
Where, there is no way of telling;
She has vanished like the snow.

What became of Heloise?
Abelard - he was her lover -
Notre Dame or Saint Denys;
Where he went I can't discover.
Abelard, he was her lover.
All the while they come and they go -
Where, there is no way of telling;
She has vanished like the snow.

Joan came riding from Lorraine -
Everybody knows the story.
England burnt her in Rouen;
Theirs the shame and ours the glory,
Everybody knows the story -
All the while they come and they go -
England's shame and France's glory,
She has vanished like the snow.

Where the time and where the place is -
That is what I'd like to know,
Where their glory and their grace is
When they vanish like the snow.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Jeanie
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 07:41 PM

That's a beautiful song, Micca. Here is a link to the 15th century French poem, 'Ballade des dames de temps jadis' by Francois Villon, on which these lyrics are based, giving the text in medieval French and in English: Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 07:42 PM

LONDON (Reuters) - British composer Sydney Carter, author of the popular song "Lord of the Dance," died in London on Saturday aged 88, according to a spokesman for his family.
Carter, a Christian poet and folk singer, adapted a melody from a Shaker hymn when he wrote the song in 1963.

A church and school choir favorite, the song has become a modern classic, rerecorded many times as well as lending its name to American dancer Michael Flatley's hit musical show.

Writing about the song in 1974, Carter said: "I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality."


He shall be missed on this side of the ocean as well.
Arkie

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 08:31 PM

Click here for a very nice page on the Lovely in the Dances CD.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Barbara
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 09:01 PM

Curiously, we appear to have eight Sydney Carter tunes in DT, so perhaps either the publisher has relented, or decided to ignore us.
These are:
SILVER IN THE STUBBLE
JULIAN OF NORWICH
WALK IN THE LIGHT
RAT RACE
LORD OF THE DANCE
MAN WITH A MICROPHONE
EVERY STAR SHALL SING A CAROL
CROW ON THE CRADLE
And many more in the threads. Here is my favorite: John Ball
Good journey and Godspeed, Sydney Carter.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: rich-joy
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 09:03 PM

Our a cappella harmony group "Work-in-Progress" is working on the lovely "Julien of Norwich" at present (Denis and Lyn Tracey,in Oz, always did a nice version of this one).

"Silver in the Stubble" has long been a Folk Club favourite - and long before most of the singers could truly relate to its content!!!

I remember concerts of Frankie Armstrong's where she did a few of Sydney's numbers : "Girl in a Garden" (viewed from a train and with the train's rhythm) and "I Come Like a Beggar" both spring to mind.

Tunesmith, that song you remembered may have been "Middle-Aged, Middle-Class, Mediocre" - I have it in the Galliard Ltd publication from 1969 : "Songs of Sydney Carter, In the Present Tense, Book 2"

Vale, Sydney ...



Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: matai
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 10:20 PM

I have always loved his 'Crow on the Cradle' which I have performed many times with a small refrain that I added to the tune of rock-a-bye baby: Rock-a-bye on the tree top
          When the wind blows the cradle will rock
          When the bomb fall the baby will die
          No one will live to kiss her good-bye
A bit dire I know but it works.
My son who claims he learned the song from me plays it as a rock song and he's added another nursery rhyme: little boy blue, come blow up your horn, the sheep's down the meadow, the cows are all gone: (or something like that)it works too.
So how's that for a bit of digital tradition. Thanks Sydney, we have so loved that song.. in spite of/because of what we've done to it.
Matai

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,Pat Cooksey.
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 11:31 PM

Cheers Syd. Farewell to a decent, honest man, who was part of a
tradition that sadly no longer exists.
Sydney lived the latter part of his life unaware of the influence
he had on others, those who knew him knew otherwise.

R.I.P.

Pat.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 01:40 AM

I first heard Lord of the Dance in Montreal. It was and is a remarkable song. I think also I may have heard Louis Killan play it. I am sadden that a good writer has passed on, but happy that he stopped by.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 05:48 AM

Bon Voyage Sydney Carter, we will not meet in the after life, as I'm sure you're going upwards.
John.... Favourite song.. Putting out the Dustbins

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Nessie
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 05:51 AM

He made his mark, and lives on.
RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Micca
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:01 AM

Jeanie,thanks for the link, I think it shows what a masterful songwriter Carter was, how he took the essence of Villons original and re-phrased it, Many, many thanks

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:12 AM

Never realised he wrote 'One More Step'which we used to sing in the school where I teach (only a couple of verses though). I always enjoyed that one so may revive it and even learn the other verses for myself.
He will not be forgotten while we sing his songs.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:45 AM

"Curiously, we appear to have eight Sydney Carter tunes in DT, so perhaps either the publisher has relented, or decided to ignore us.


No we don't - just check. In place of the songs there's a notice saying that the song in question isn't allowed in the DT because of the publishers. Most of them seem to be in the Mudcat threads though.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:47 AM

I remember that my old friend George Belton, traditional singer from Sussex, loved Sydney Carter's songs, particularly 'Mixed Up Old Man'. He gave it as much respect as any of the old songs in his repertoire and sang it with great relish. 'It's a good song' was his verdict, and therefore worth singing. I am saddened by the loss of this thoughtful and creative man. How ironic that he should end in the fog of Alzheimer's disease. But a look at the list of the songs he wrote shows that he will not be forgotten as long as folks like to sing. A legacy left by a remarkable man. May Rest in Peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Willa
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:48 AM

Found this quotation on the Stainer site:
Sydney's faith is contained in this quotation from his poem Interview:

"So what do you believe in?
Nothing fixed or final,all the while I travel a miracle. I doubt,
and yet I walk upon the water"

http://www.stainer.co.uk/carter.html

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:53 AM

A fine and talented man who will be missed, but whose songs will keep him with us.

The only song of his I've sung regularly over the years is "The Telephone Song" but of course these days you have to explain to some of the audience what buttons A and B on a payphone were all about and the fact that telephone exchanges had names.

I remember the TV programme Micca referred to above very well, what a sursprising amount of Folk we had on TV in those days.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 06:57 AM

Lovely man, a real sweetie and a true original I've been singing "Down Below" for years, a song which escaped into mainstream entertainment via Ian Wallace's splendid recording.
   I have just spent four days making what one might term healing or reconciling music in a Quaker Meeting House, so this seems a very good time for me to be thinking about Sydney Carter.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Flash Company
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 07:53 AM

Sorry to hear of S.C's death, Anyone recall his entry in the EFDSS artists list? It went 'I sing my own unaccompanied songs and occasionaly ring a bell'
In my singing days I sang his song about Eros & London
One leg up and one leg dahn
Like an old Cock sparrer
Filing ove Piccadilly wiv me bow and arrer!

He will be missed

FC

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:13 AM

Somebody once told me that Sydney Carter was "too nice a person to be on the folk scene" that is probably true, but I am certainly glad that he was on the folk scene.He will be sadly missed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:38 AM

"...too nice a person to be on the folk scene" - I think it's more a question of his being a remarkably nice person, even by the standards of the folk scene.

I don't know how these things work, but I think that, largely because of the impact of people like Sydney over the years, the "folk scene", in this part of the world anyway, continues to be much more humane and decent than we are probably entitled to expect. Role models, if you like. (The same is true of Martin Carthy, just for one.)

There are always some nasty people around, here as everywhere, but we shouldn't give them too much importance.

As Auden put it:
Private faces in public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces in private places.

Sydney Carter was a private face in any public place he ever appeared in.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Tam the Bam (Nutter)
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 11:38 AM

It's sad when a fellow singer-songwriter/musician/songwriter dies.
I like Sydney Cater's songs the Lord of the dance and silver in the stubble are just two of the songs that he wrote which I like.

Farewell Sydney Carter wherever you are.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: maire-aine
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 11:47 AM

Rest in Peace, Sydney. Your songs have seen me through some very difficult times.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 12:05 PM

passing of an era

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 02:48 PM

I only wish I'd seen this thread last night.
I'm sure we could have changed a couple of hymns this morning!

He'll be missed by many!


Nigel

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,Leon Berger
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:47 PM

As you've all heard by now Sydney died yesterday at 4.00pm. I knew him through my friendship with Donald Swann (who incidentally died 10 years ago this very month)- they served in Greece together as Concienstious Objectors with the Friends Ambulance Unit during the war and remained friends and musical collaborators. Donald transcribed and notated most of Sydney's music for him.

I am currently writing the authorised biography of Michael Flanders and, of course, Donald and Sydney figure heavily in the story.

Sydney was a very gentle, thoughtful man with a wickewd sense of humour - we'll all miuss him

Leon Berger (Administrator)
THE FLANDERS & SWANN ESTATES

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 07:39 PM

A friend of mine wrote a Morris Dance to Lord of the Dance, we shall have to dance it in his memmory at the next Cat's on Fire practise.
Aways wanted the albumn "Songs of Sydney Carter" it's an older one with Maddy Prior, John Kirkpatrick and the like on it. Includes a great song I only heard once about 15+ years ago "Carol of the Animals" or something like that. The song has stuck with me ever since, it's either a great song by a great writer, or I really am infatuated with Maddy Prior. Probably both. Known Siver in the Stubble for way too many years, it's a too true now.
His song books are available somewhere on the web.
JohnB

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Barbara
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:11 PM

Ah, McGrath, you're right. I should have looked first. But you didn't check either. Four of them are there.
We sang John Ball at Merritt's this morning, and if he's not careful, he'll have to get the ceiling supports replaced. I swear I saw it go up at least a couple inches.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: GUEST,Dick Wolff, Oxford
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 07:22 AM

I think I may have been responsible for Sydney's last public performance when I invited him to Warwick Folk Festival in about 1993. Eccentric, charming, tremendously affirming guy, and too modest. I tried, about a year ago, to persuade Continuum to prepare to republish his book 'Rock of Doubt' (also published in paperback as 'Light in the Darkness') as a tribute when the inevitable happened. I wrote to them :
"It would be wonderful if, when he eventually dies, he could be given some credit for being the thinker that he was, and 'The Rock of Doubt' is a fine example — as far as I know, the only example (other than the commentary in 'Greenprint for Song') of his theology and philosophy ever printed. It reveals him to have been a man thirty years ahead of his time."

The reply was :

"I am afraid I see no prospect of being able to reissue Rock of Doubt. We just could not find a sufficient market for it, I fear."

It would be great to prove them wrong. Continuum are, I believe, willing to release the copyright to Stainer & Bell.

I regularly use Sydney's songs in church worship, and my folk group 'Three Pressed Men' include his material in our repertoire, some of which is recorded.

He had the remarkable knack of expressing deep theology in words that children can understand, without being trite or condescending. He anticipated 'liberation theology' (e.g. "I come like a beggar with a gift in my hand") and feminist theology ("Come, Love, Carolling along with me . . I carry the maker of the world in me"). It would be a pity if obituaries were to concentrate on the one song which, as I recall, he himself valued somewhat less, and to which he didn't write the tune.

Sydney's theology has had a huge influence on me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I cannot see that his more theological songs will ever date.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 07:39 AM

A lovely man - I first heard him at Hampstead Folk Club (The Enterprise) in the early 60s. I have always been impressed with how he managed to write wonderful songs in so many different genres - Religious, Protest, Romantic, Comic etc. Perhaps "Silver in the Stubble" sums him up. He always said that it was influenced by St Augustine's prayer - "Lord make me chaste - but not yet !"

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Compton
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 08:29 AM

I recall, unto numbers of years ago the ITV programme on the God Slot..Hallelujah..that had Sydney Carter, Nadia Cattouse, Isla Cameron and a young Martin Carthy!
The Spinners(!!) on a vinyl LP" Folk at the Phil" sang Silver in the Stubble"
Last televised appearance on Sydney Carter was on a programme about Rabbi Lionel Blue (who used to visit him in old folks home)..He didn't really know where he was then.
However, if he's only known for one thing...Lord of the Dance will do.
So long Syd, it's been good to know you!

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 08:32 AM

How sad. I didn't catch it on the news, so I've only just heard. As Kevin McGrath says, the world would be a better place for a few more like him; but it's a better place for just the one of him. He was one ofthose rare folks who restore your faith in human nature. God bless, Sydney.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: red max
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 08:32 AM

By pure coincidence I was listening to the LP "And now it is so early" this morning. It was recorded with Bob & Carole Pegg, and features some excellent arrangements and accompaniments

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Hawker
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 09:39 AM

God Bless you Sydney!
He will be sadly missed
Sing John Ball, Go tell it to them all!
Lucy

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 10:22 AM

Managed to get Putting out the Dustbin sung on Sunday - A lot of people at the session had missed the announcement of Sidney's death.
It is a shame his last years were clouded by Altzheimers, but he will
long be remembered for the wealth of wonderful songs he left us.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: vectis
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 03:38 PM

The Torygraph, dismally, failed to carry an obit on him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Sydney Carter
From: Frankham
Date: 15 Mar 04 - 03:46 PM

A brilliant song is "Walk In The Light" about Quaker leader George Fox. We sing it for children as part of an American history program in the schools.

It always gets an appropriately good response.

A great talent lives on through his songs.

Frank Hamilton