Reflection sings Sydney Carter: “Standing By The Window”

Thank God, or somebody, or nobody at all, Christmas, though less than a month in the past, is now pretty much forgotten. 

One can still get a shiver thinking about all the rotten novelty songs blasted at us, including the irritating solo works by Lennon and McCartney (“Happy Xmas War Is Over” and “Wonderful Christmastime”). There were tedious novelties (“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer") and billiously cheerful pesterings like “Sleigh Ride” and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." It was overkill on "Holly Jolly" Burl Ives, the idiotic "Feliz Navidad," and new pains in the ear like self-parodist William Shatner reciting "Winder Wonderland."

Nasty alternative songs have been few.  Stan Freberg, anyone? No. Not at all. You'll hear The Pogues once too often (and twice is too often). Somehow gutter trash from Ireland quarreling in a drunk tank in New York City amuses people. This isn't even an anti-Christmas song, since people LOVE it so much. It's more like Brecht & Weill reeking of corned beef and potatoes.

It would be nice if some alternative radio station or some Spotify playlist slipped in “Standing By The Window,” recorded by Reflection back in 1968. The album is named after the cunning and punning Carter poem, “The Present Tense,” which reflected on our age of anxiety. Spoken with eerie sound effects, it opens the album, which segues into "Standing By the Window."
The male and female leads of Reflection (the name of the group and also their record label!) do a fine folk-rock job mixing desultory verse and haunting chorus. It goes exactly like this, and you can strum along to a simple A minor and G, with a dash of D minor and E: 

No use knocking at the window, there is nothing here for you, sir,
All the rooms are let already, there is nothing left for you, sir. 

Chorus:
Standing in the rain, knocking on the window, knocking on the window on a Christmas day
There he goes again, knocking on the window, knocking on the window in the same old way

No use knocking at the window,  some are lucky, some are not, sir,
We are Christian men and women,  and we're keeping what we've got, sir.
No, we haven't got a cradle,  no, we haven't got a stable,
We are Christian men and women,   always willing, never able.
Christ, the Lord, has gone to heaven,  one day he'll be coming back, sir,
In our house he will be welcome,  but we hope he won't be black, sir.
Wishing you a merry Christmas, we will all go back to bed, sir,
Till you woke us with your knocking, we were sleeping like the dead, sir. 


 Reflection was Sue McHaffie, Mo Brown, Richard Spence, Jonathan Jones, Michael Campbell and Stuart Yeates on vocals. The backing musicians included James Etheridge, Michael Campbell, Colin Wright, Nik Knight and Lionel Browne. The eclectic group also tossed in some oboe (Lesley Bateson), flute (Marion Banks), Cello (Stuart Yeates), and even a celeste (from lead vocalist Sue McHaffie). Despite the somewhat bitter lyrics here, Reflection was a religious record label, and Sue McHaffie appears on two other Reflection releases, “A Folk Passion” (which includes the songs “Come to the Cross” and “Jesus the King”) and “Nativity” which includes “Sing High with the Holy” and “To Jesus On his Birthday.” These were issued in 1971 and 1972.  

The group’s 1968 album of Carter songs did include “Lord of the Dance,” and in the album notes, a shrug that “classification of Sydney Cater’s songs is self-defeating.” Yes, quite true of an album that includes both “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol” and “The Vicar is a Beatnik.” And the stinging track below. Again quoting from the liner notes, “It is the genius of Sydney Carter that his songs have this ability to make us face and question our innermost thoughts and conflicts.”  

While some find comfort in singing “Rock of Ages,” Carter joked about carrying around his “rock of doubt,” (the title of his book). His songs about the hypocrisy of religion made those who loved his lyrics to “Lord of the Dance” feel uneasy. One of the crowns in his thorny canon is “Friday Morning.” The poem first published in 1960 instantly outraged the conservative U.K. politician and one-time Minister of Health Enoch Powell. The Daily Mirror joined in, demanding the poem be banned because of lines such as: “‘It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you or me,’” I said to the carpenter a’ hanging on the tree.” 

The less inflammatory songs of Carter would turn up on “Lovely in the Dances,” a 1981 all-star collection of covers led by the lovely Maddy Prior.  Carter also got some royalties from the comic sewer song “Down Below,” which was recorded by both Ian Wallace (who also had hits with Flanders & Swann novelties) and by Rolf Harris. 

Over these past 50 years, since Reflection recorded their album of covers, it’s mostly been the general satires (“The Rat Race” for example) and the more genial and Christmas-type numbers that have kept Carter’s name alive. His name is alive but he isn't -- born in 1915, he died in 2004 at the age of 88. 

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