Spiral Staircase - Classic Songs is a double CD compilation of tracks from Ralph McTell's early Transatlantic LPs Eight Frames a Second, Spiral Staircase, My Side of Your Window and Revisited. It was released in 1997. Ralph McTell (born Ralph May in Farnborough, Kent, England, 3 December 1944 and raised in Croydon) is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s.