L'Odeur de la Pluie

Lyrics

[Intro]
The air holds its breath.
The asphalt is a grey desert.
One drop.
Then another.

[Verse 1]
The earth cracks its lips.
A silent prayer for weeks.
Down in the dark, the Streptomyces are sleeping.
Or maybe they are dying.
Giving up their ghosts for this.
Isabel Joy Bear, did you know their name in '64?
In your CSIRO lab?
You just called it a perfume from a stone.
The ichor of a quiet god.

[Chorus]
And oh, the petrichor.
The smell of answered prayers.
This is not my memory.
This is older than my bones.
This relief, it has a name I did not know I knew.
Geosmin.
A word for coming home to water.

[Verse 2]
I remember a porch swing, a country I can't place.
The red dust on your shoes.
You said it smells like the beets we pulled from the garden.
A clean, dark sweetness.
You said it was the taste of the river carp before we fried it.
The good mud. The living mud.
And we just sat there, breathing it in.
A gift from the dying, for the living.

[Chorus]
And oh, the petrichor.
The smell of answered prayers.
This is not my memory.
This is older than my bones.
This relief, it has a name I did not know I knew.
Geosmin.
A word for coming home to water.

[Bridge]
Five parts per trillion.
That's all it takes.
A shark smelling blood.
My ancestor's ancestor, smelling life.
A single molecule on the wind,
a promise that the world will not end in dust.
Aerosols of tiny ghosts,
rising from the pores of the earth to say:
It's alright. We are here.

[Outro]
Now the street is dark and shining.
The smell is washed away.
Just the clean scent of water now.
The promise kept.
Thank you for the warning.
Thank you for the memory.