Taken from the "Jubilee: Live at Wolf Trap" performance and found on the album "Come On, Come On".
Mary Chapin Carpenter was born Feb. 21, 1958, in Princeton, N.J. Her father was an executive for Life magazine, and she spent part of her early life living in Japan. She grew up with a love of contemporary pop hits, although her mother's Woody Guthrie and Judy Collins records gave her some interest in country/folk music. She spent her time at home with her guitar, and her father encouraged her to perform at talent nights.
Enrolling in Brown University, Carpenter earned a degree in American civilization. Between college years she would play local bars and clubs in the Washington, DC area. By 1986, she was a local star, winning five Washington Area Music Awards. She released her 1987 debut "Hometown Girl", produced by guitarist/producer John Jennings.
She returns to Washington almost every summer to perform at the popular outdoor venue Wolftrap.
Only a Dream lyrics:
I can recall the sound of the wind
As it blew throught the trees and the trees would bend
I can recall the smell of the rain
On a hot summer night
Coming through the screen
I'd crawl in your bed when the lightning flashed
And I'd still be there when the storm had passed
Dead to the world, to the morning cast
Its light all around your room
We lived on a street where the tall elm shade
Was as green as the grass and as cool as a blade
That you held in your teeth as we lay on our backs
Staring up at the blue and the blue stared back
I used to believe we were just like those trees
We'd grown just as tall and as proud as we pleased
With our feet on the ground and our arms in the breeze
Under a sheltering sky
Twirl me about, and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down,
Say it was only a dream
A big truck was parked in the drive one day
They wrapped us in paper and moved us away
Your room was no longer next door to mine
And this kid sister thing was old by that time
But oh how our dreams went bump in the night
And the voices downstairs getting into a fight
And the next day a silence you could cut with a knife
And feel like a blade at your throat
Twirl me about and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
When I look up at you looking down
Say it as only a dream
The day you left home you got an early start
I watched your car back out in the dark
I opened the door to your room down the hall
I turned on the light
And all that I saw
Was a bed and a desk and couple of tacks
No sign of someone who expects to be back
It must have been one hell of a suitcase you packed
Twirl me about, twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
When I look up at you looking down
Say it was only a dream