PATCHOULI DREAMS
Copyright 1990, S Hartwell
Written for a friend's band. Two versions, one for male lead, other for female lead.
PATCHOULI DREAMS (for female vocal)
Memories submerged and hidden
Emerge unbidden
Woken by the waft of patchouli scent
Faces I’d thought forgotten
Teenage paths trodden
Words and images from before you went.
Dark unbound hair, your menthol cigarette,
How can I forget
The years spent dancing to ‘Stairway to Heaven’?
Your mellow laugh, your wax-pale face
Your sweet lips’ taste
The saddle-wax and scent upon black leather.
We spent those years in a perfumed haze
In patchouli days
Sharing cigarettes and promises uncaring of the cost.
Does your fringed leather grow dusty
In cupboards musty
Does Old Spice replace patchouli, do you still burn fragrant ‘Joss’?
So many years now you’ve been gone,
What went so wrong?
Dreams grown stale as an incense haze.
I’ve hung my flowing skirts away
For tamer days
With patchouli scented memories of wilder, carefree ways.
A dark-haired man drifts in my mind,
Left far behind
When we grew away from Rainbow and Pink Floyd,
Hippy juice and leather wax
Bring memories back,
Spiralling downwards into an echoing void.
PATCHOULI DREAMS (for male vocal)
Memories submerged and hidden
Emerge unbidden
Woken by the waft of patchouli scent
Faces I’d thought forgotten
Teenage paths trodden
Words and images from before you went.
Dark unbound hair, your menthol cigarette,
How can I forget
The years spent dancing to ‘Stairway to Heaven’?
Your singing laugh, your wax-pale face
Your sweet lips’ taste
The saddle-wax and scent upon black leather.
We spent those years in a perfumed haze
In patchouli days
Sharing cigarettes and promises uncaring of the cost.
Does your fringed leather grow dusty
In cupboards musty
Does Chanel replace patchouli, do you still burn fragrant ‘Joss’?
So many years now you’ve been gone,
What went so wrong?
Dreams grown stale as an incense haze.
Have you hung your flowing skirts away
For tamer days
With patchouli scented memories of wilder, carefree ways?
A dark-haired girl drifts in my mind,
Left far behind
When we grew away from Rainbow and Pink Floyd,
Hippy juice and leather wax
Bring memories back,
Spiralling downwards into an echoing void.