Carousel Wind

At the Garden State Plaza there's wonder to spare
By the grand old Venetian Carousel in the square
It's got ivory steeds to stir up the air
Creating a wind with a whimsical flare

O What do you dream when you wistfully stare
When the wind from the carousel ruffles your hair
See the smiles on the faces of kids spinning round
And let your mind wander with calliope sound

If you're off to Paramus and the Carousel Square
Say hello to the girl with the chestnut brown hair
She sits all alone and wistfully stares
O what does she dream does anyone care

O What do you dream when you wistfully stare...

O the carousel starts with a ring of the bell
Will you be lost in a dream or transformed for a spell
Does the wind stir your heart with phantom embraces
Or just blow your mind to far away places

At the Garden State Plaza all the children will grin
As your cares fly away with the carousel wind
And I think of the girl with the long chestnut hair
It's been quite a while since I last saw her there

O What do you dream when you wistfully stare...


© 1997 Stefan des Lauriers

I was selling Magic Pens at a kiosk beside the Venetian Carousel at the Garden State Plaza and would often notice a girl in her early twenties being left by her parents on the same bench. She looked lonely sitting there watching the carousel — it made me wonder what was going through her mind day after day — so much so that I started writing a song about her. The main theme of song was to speculate on what she might be dreaming, that perhaps the wind generated by the carousel might carry her off with its phantom embraces. I suggested in the song that if you happened to see her at the mall to say hello to her, but hadn’t done so myself. So I said hello to her and asked why she sat at the same bench beside the carousel. She said that she liked to see the smiles on the faces of the children. The carousel was decorated with ornately framed vignettes of Venice, and each time it stopped a different scene would take the girl into a new dream world.

NOTHING LESS AND NOTHING MORE

Wasn’t there a carousel here just the other day

And a mime with golden grin and invisible bouquet

The funny way he held that nautical shell up to his ear

Please don’t tell me that he’s gone and disappeared

Still the moon reigns in the ocean washing shells to the shore

It’s a grand cliché nothing less and nothing more

He had all the girls waiting in line —laughing at his antics

How did I end up here on the other side of the Atlantic

Like that Carousel by the shore when it got taken for a ride

With a mighty hurricane it just went out with the tide

We used to play on a shipwrecked carousel at low tides

I wanted to tell the mime of our travels on a cosmic ride

I recall his invisible bouquet and how my poor heart aches

As if there were prancing ponies in very wave that breaks