From the Oriental Notebook Songtext
von Iris DeMent

How drunk we were
Each with the other
That marvelous night
When all the ancient darkness gave us light
And the watering canals were murmuring
And the black carnation scent
Pierced like a sting
How we walked along
Through city night airs
Through savage songs
And the midnight heat the serpent coiled among
The constellations in the thick-starred sky
And we did not dare to turn
And meet one another′s eyes


And it seemed as if the ages walked with us unseen
And as if an invisible hand was striking a tambourine
And there were stranger sounds like something we must mark
Secret signals that swirled about us there in the dark
Thus once and only once
We walked together
When all of a sudden the moon
Like a diamond sailboat swam into view
Our parting meeting
That single encounter that we knew
And should that night return to you, to mind
I wish however, lady, do be kind
And send me waking or dreaming this my choice
An Asian reed pipe's slender voice