Silver Ships on the Sea, by Pok the Bard.
Album: Anthology
SILVER SHIPS ON THE SEA
Winter's call is calling
Through the leaves
You can hear the rustling sounds saying
Free me please
Said the seventh angel standing
Amid the trees
Say please come taste my simple wines
Please come to your rest
All along the stone strewn causeway
Serpents coil and hiss
Beckoning and whispering
Bowing for the kiss
See me and free me
Do which is best
Be me and free me
Do which is best
And there's a hundred thousand elves
Waiting in their boats of sunlight
Waitng and waiting for the rite
For the rite
Spring times are come again
And we are but men
Speaking and seeking
Beginning again
And you who stand on the border
Waiving goodbye
You wouldn't listen to their words
You recognised the lie
Come down to the sea
At dawn with me
Our boat is a bobbing and a rocking on the waves
How is it you look at me, is it how I you?
Are we agreed on our journeys being long due?
Being long due
And so the end
Was only the beginning
I rose to catch the sun
But found it missing
Loneliness oh loneliness
My only guide
A boat a-bobbing
Way out on the tide
Way out on the tide
Music and lyrics by Simon Miller.
Copyright © 1984 Pok Songs/Explicit Music.
This arrangement by Pok and Maxx Damage.
Performers:
Pok the Bard: vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, drums, percussion, descant recorder, rainstick
Maxx Damage: bass guitars, cello, synthesizer
The sound of the sea eventually came from here.
freesound.org/s/339517/
Recorded and engineeered at Wud Records Studio One, Exeter, 2015-17.
Recorded and engineeered at Wud Records Studio One, Europe, 2017-20.
Mixed and mastered at Wud Records Studio One, Europe, 2020.
Remixed and remastered at Wud Records Studio One, Europe, 2025.
Copyright ℗ 2025 Wud Records.
Fun Facts:
* Silver Ships on the Sea was composed by Pok in the summer of 1984.
* It is a wonderful whimsical wistful tale with a drop-D in the guitar - 'Drower tuning'.
* We all loved this extraordinary song from the very first hearing and are very happy to be able to finally release this version.
* We feel it is both authentic to the original, as well as capturing the full spectrum of sounds as imagined and conceived back in the 80s.
* We invite the listener to feel the closeness of the festival crowd, and sense the dry ice and lighting on stage as the performers writhe and invoke under the moon.
* What started out as a pretty little acoustic number about the Elves leaving Middle Earth turned into the most uncompromisingly relentless piece of hardcore psychedlia one could possibly imagine.
* We had two attempts at recording the sea at Jacob's Ladder beach in Sidmouth, but sadly both were thwarted.
* Firstly by strong winds which rendered the recordings horrible.
* The second visit was thwarted by somebody's wretched dog, which barked and barked and barked for the entire time that we were there.
* It was unbelievable.
* It's probably still barking now.
* Eventually we downloaded somebody else's recording of the sea.
* It was a shame but it did the job.
* We had always imagined the flotilla of silvery elven boats waiting at the water's edge at Jacob's Ladder beach.
* Originally the acoustic guitars were played on a borrowed Ovation-style instrument, but due to technical reasons we had to re-record them all.
* The re-recorded acoustic guitar was performed by Pok on his Tanglewood, and there is some video footage of the recording which we hope to publish someday.
See also:
https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/artists/pok/
https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/artists/pok/anthology/
https://wudrecords.bandcamp.com/track/silver-ships-on-the-sea
https://www.explicitmusic.co.uk/lyrics-information/pok-bard/anthology/silver-ships-on-the-sea
https://www.youtube.com/@poktv6148/videos
https://www.facebook.com/pokthebard
http://pookofpok.blogspot.com/
https://linktr.ee/pokthebard
