Pok: The Dark, The Ring, and The Knowledge

The Dark, The Ring, and The Knowledge by Pok the Bard. Album: Anthology THE DARK, THE RING, AND THE KNOWLEDGE How can you tell if it’s friend or if it’s foe You never can be sure in the dark Reminding you of horrors read on someone’s older knee Keep you tucked well in your sheets A crack of light from out the sky The door swings to and fro Middle of night, what a fright Pick a movie slow Yes this is a world full of portals and windows We don’t know what lies beyond Stuck in a room you’ll play a sick tune If you don’t breathe the air outside Should you but one day walk on out See what you can find The darkness is a friend you know But seems to make us blind It’s been a long time since I took a walk With you by the stream So if you like we’ll go down there And talk of where we’ve been Lying in the water clear I found an ancient ring Gave it to you, I felt I ought I’m sure you’ve worn that one before Then you spoke to me about the fear That lies hidden out of view You want to know just what to do As if I held some clue Look within yourself my love Within will rule without But while you’re chasing phantoms round Make sure you’re getting something to laugh about You told me about a month on Woke up in the dead of night A wizard was there in your room all right You shuddered but it seemed OK He took hold of the ring that was Lying there on the desk And said “Oh child, you’re one of us But you must just wait a while.” And so we talked about this for a while How she coped with it all She seemed so much better now She faced her darkness came to her In knowledge of the ways and means Of fear of the unknown She found the way to all our hearts Is the way to her own Lyrics and music by Simon Miller. Copyright © 1985 Pok Songs/Explicit Music. This arrangement by Pok, Josh Reynes, Maxx Damage and Sven Stiglund. Performers: Pok the Bard – voices, guitars Josh Reynes – organ (left hand), piano (right hand), congas Maxx Damage – bass Sven Stiglund – drums, shaker Guitars, bass and voices recorded at Wud Records Studio One, Exeter, 2017. Drums, percussion and keys recorded at Wud Records Studio One, Central Europe, 2023. Engineered, mixed, produced and mastered at Wud Records Studio One, Central Europe, 2023. Original release date: 12th November 2023 Copyright ℗ 2023 Wud Records. Fun Facts: * The Dark, The Ring, and The Knowledge is in the key of G. * The tempo is 78.5 BPM, or andante if you wish. * This song first appears on the Laughing Sun cassette called Indeed. * Pok wrote it in 1985. * It was based on an allegedly true story told by a friend of Pok and the wider Wud posse. * She apparently lost a piece of jewelry and then found it again, several years later. * It was lying on the tarmac of a country lane, many miles from where it had vanished. * She was always somewhat prone to rather odd events and may indeed have awoken one night with a benign wizardly stranger shuffling and poking about in her bedroom. * We believe the stream where Pok and his friend went walking was in Hoopern Valley, in the grounds of Exeter University. * Pok plays a delightful fingerstyle acoustic guitar on the Tanglewood. * His lead parts were performed on Marsha, a beautiful Ibanez Roadstar II that was later stolen. * Pok is accompanied on drums by Sven’s infectious dancehall shuffle. * Josh played piano and organ at the same time and almost in one take. * Sven and Josh overdubbed the percussion. * Maxx completes the ensemble with understated and precision bass that works perfectly. * For full details click the link to Explicit Music below. See also: https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/artists/pok/ https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/artists/pok/anthology/ https://www.explicitmusic.co.uk/lyrics-information/pok-bard/anthology/the-dark-the-ring-and-the-knowledge https://wudrecords.bandcamp.com/album/anthology https://www.youtube.com/@poktv6148/videos https://www.facebook.com/pokthebard http://pookofpok.blogspot.com/ https://linktr.ee/pokthebard