Following “Traffic”, Sprocket and Jonah enter the club after arriving there by bike and cab respectively. Carla and a couple other folks (Gorgissima, Grub) are there, setting up for the night. D, who does not work at the club, is hanging paintings for an exhibition they’re showing of his artwork. Carla gives Sprocket - her son - a broom and tries to put him to work, but he snaps at her. They have a little argument, and we find out that there is a larger issue between them - Carla and Sprocket’s father separated bitterly right before he was born, and Sprocket wants to know his dad but Carla won’t even tell Sprocket who he is. Carla and Sprocket have a loving relationship but this situation is driving a wedge between them. Carla attempts to reason with Sprocket by singing “The Knowing Ones” - to let him know that some things are best left to the imagination.
lyrics
CARLA:
There's an old oak chest by the window
That my great-grandfather built one shining June
And I love to sit and look at it, proud on the hardwood floor
Gleaming in the rays of summer afternoon
They changed the family name at Ellis Island
And no one here today knows what it was
They ripped up all the records around the second World War
And time took the knowing ones, as it always does
And no one here can tell me any more than what they know
It's a shame the knowing ones were gone so long before
The ones who need to know what we were so long ago
Look in the old oak chest, and you won't see much -
Just a few loose baubles and things
But even if my ancestors were nothing more than carpenters
There's no one here to say they weren't kings
In the old oak chest I see them all as kings.
And no one here can tell me any more than what they know
It's a shame the knowing ones were gone so long before
The ones who need to know what we were so long ago
There's an old oak chest by the window
That my great-grandfather built one shining June
And I love to sit and look at it, proud on the hardwood floor
While the knowing ones are smiling in the rays of summer afternoon.
credits
from Rise And Shine: Day 2,
released December 15, 2019
Words and music by Jed Davis
Published by Eschatonality/ASCAP, all rights reserved
Wendy Ip: vocals (CARLA)
Miss Guy: vocals (GORGISSIMA)
Bryan Thomas: vocals (JONAH)
Jed Davis: vocals (D), piano, organ
Alex Dubovoy: electric guitar
Daniel Marcus: acoustic guitar
Mike Keaney: bass
Joe Abba: drums
Brian Dewan: accordion
Produced by Jed Davis
Recorded by Jed Davis at the Ramones Loft, New York, NY, and Pile of Sound
Additional recording by John Delehanty at O Studios, Albany, NY
Mixed by Tim Latham
Mastered at Howie Weinberg Mastering by Howie Weinberg and Will Borza