Sydney Carter

Sydney Carter (6 May 1915 – 13 March 2004) was an English Quaker poet and songwriter.

• 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.
  • "So what do you believe in?"

• Your holy hearsay is not evidence.
  Give me the good news in the present tense.
  What happened nineteen hundred years ago
  May not have happened.
  How am I to know?
  So shut your Bibles up and show me how
  The Christ you talk about
  Is living now.
  • "Present Tense"

• Come holy harlequin!
  Shake the world and shock the hypocrite
  Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
  Let the feast of love begin,
  Let the hungry all come in,
  Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
  • "Come, Holy Harlequin" (1974) · Performance by Franciscus Henri (2005)

• Teach the crippled how to leap,
  Throw their crutches on a heap,
  Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
  Rock, love, carry it away,
  Lift the world up by your levity,
  Rock, love, carry it away, turn it upside down.
  • "Come, Holy Harlequin" (1974)

• 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. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.
  Whether Jesus ever leaped in Galilee to the rhythm of a pipe or drum I do not know. We are told that David danced (and as an act of worship too), so it is not impossible. The fact that many Christians have regarded dancing as a bit ungodly (in a church, at any rate) does not mean that Jesus did. The Shakers didn't...
  • Green Print for Song (1974)

• They are songs which can be sung in a Christian context, but they all had to mean something to me because I was often on the edge of not believing. The songs certainly have not made my fortune, but I am still grateful for the royalties when they come in.
  • On the songs One More Step, Lord of the Dance, and When I needed a neighbour which a survey of schools in the UK found to be the first, fifth, and sixth most sung of songs under copyright used in school assemblies.
  • The Times [London] (29 August 1996)

• There are obvious problems with so many denominations in schools today, but I had collective worship at school and I do not think it is a bad thing.
  • The Times [London] (29 August 1996)

• Faith is more basic than language or theology. Faith is the response to something which is calling us from the timeless part of our reality. Faith may be encouraged by what has happened in the past, or what is thought to have happened in the past, but the only proof of it is in the future. Scriptures and creeds may come to seem incredible, but faith will still go dancing on. Even though (because it rejects a doctrine) it is now described as "doubt". This, I believe, is the kind of faith that Christ commended.
  • Obituary in The Independent (17 March 2001)

• Coming and going by the dance, I see
  That what I am not is a part of me.
  Dancing is all that I can ever trust,
  The dance is all I am, the rest is dust.
  I will believe my bones and live by what
  Will go on dancing when my bones are not.
  • Written as an epitaph based upon his lyrics to "Lord of the Dance".

These quotes are from the definitive lyrics to original "Lord of the Dance" song which was written to accompany the Shaker tune of "Simple Gifts" by Joseph Brackett. These were later adapted (in either ignorance or denial of the actual origins) without authorization or acknowledgments in the theatrical play "Lord of the Dance", and in other adaptations since.

• I danced in the morning
  When the world was begun,
  And I danced in the moon
  And the stars and the sun,
  And I came down from heaven
  And I danced on the earth,
  At Bethlehem
  I had my birth.

• Dance, then, wherever you may be,
  I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
  And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
  And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.

• I danced on the Sabbath
  And I cured the lame;
  The holy people
  Said it was a shame.
  They whipped and they stripped
  And they hung me on high,
  And they left me there
  On a Cross to die.

• They buried my body
  And they thought I'd gone,
  But I am the Dance,
  And I still go on.

• They cut me down
  And I leapt up high;
  I am the life
  That'll never, never die;
  I'll live in you
  If you'll live in me —
  I am the Lord
  Of the Dance, said he.

"When I Needed A Neighbour", written for Christian Aid (1965) · Performance for "Divine Hymns" at YouTube · Performance by Quartet from the Choir of St Luke's, Chelsea, London, UK (25 September 2020)

• When I needed a neighbour
  Were you there, were you there?
  When I needed a neighbour, were you there?
  And the creed and the colour
  And the name won't matter
  Were you there?

• I was hungry and thirsty
  Were you there, were you there?
  I was hungry and thirsty, were you there?
  And the creed and the colour
  And the name won't matter
  Were you there?

• Wherever you travel
  I'll be there, I'll be there
  Wherever you travel, I'll be there
  And the creed and the colour
  And the name won't matter
  I'll be there.

Dedicated to George Fox, the founder of The Society of Friends ("The Quakers"), using a traditional tune known as "Monk's March", published on the EP Lord Of The Dance : Carols & Ballads (1966)

• There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man,
  it's the light that was shining when the world began.
  There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew
  and a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.

• "With a book and a steeple, with a bell and a key
  they would bind it forever, but they can't," said he.
  "Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall,
  but the light will be shining at the end of it all."

• "If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?"
  "But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!"
  "Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he,
  "For the truth is more holy than the book, to me."

• There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
  till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
  for the light is forever and the light it is free,
  "And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.

Also known as "The Bells of Norwich", this is a song dedicated to the sayings of Julian of Norwich, as recorded by Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir and Ed Trickett on All Shall Be Well Again (1983) · YouTube video · Songaday Project - July 19, 2011 - Bells of Norwich · Performance by Albion Christmas Band with short prelude about Carter and Julian

• Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
  Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.

• Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

• All shall be well, I'm telling you, let the winter come and go
  All shall be well again, I know.

• The optimistic lines "I danced in the morning when the world begun and I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun" also contain a hint of paganism which, mixed with Christianity, makes it attractive to those of ambiguous religious beliefs or none at all.
  Carter himself genially admitted that he had been partly inspired by the statue of Shiva which sat on his desk; and, whenever he was asked to resolve the contradiction, he would declare that he had never tried to do so.
  However, he admitted to being as astonished as anyone by its success. "I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian. But in fact people did sing it and, unknown to me, it touched a chord. . .
  "Anyway," Carter would continue, "it's the sort of Christianity I believe in."
  • Obituary in The Daily Telegraph (16 March 2004)

• Carter's openness to religious truth makes talks of religious categories rather superfluous, which was indeed a major irritation for the early critics of the open-minded, non-credal statements of his songs. That two of his most popular lyrics, "One More Step" and "Travel On", should invoke the concept of journey was indeed no coincidence. In this voyaging faith of interrogatives, the creed lay in the question mark, often of a Zen-like paradox.
  • Obituary in The Independent (17 March 2004)

• If any church could come to holding Sydney's allegiance, it was the Society of Friends, with its rejection of dogma, and its reliance on personal experience and social activism, and its affirmation of God's presence in every human being.
  • Obituary by Paul Oestreicher in The Guardian Unlimited (17 March 2004)

• With irony — though never with bitterness — Sydney satirised every form of self-righteous faith; to be without doubt was, to him, the ultimate in godless pride. In two books, The Rock Of Doubt (1978) and Dance In The Dark (1980), he set out the signposts of his journey in aphorisms, a journey through the holiness of humanity.
  "Bibles, legends, history are signposts: they are pointing to the future, not the past. Do not embrace the past or it will turn into an idol." Jesus was central to his experience, but not, in his words, "the official Jesus— but the Jesus who is calling you to liberty, to the breaking of all idols including the idol which he himself has become."
  • Obituary by Paul Oestreicher in The Guardian Unlimited (17 March 2004)

• Sydney Carter & "Lord of the Dance" at Stainer & Bell

Obituaries:

• The Independent
• The Daily Telegraph
• The Guardian Unlimited