!Geisha of the floating world (final)

build)

Verse 1

Paper walls and silence

Footsteps on the tatami

Dawn breaks through the shoji

Painting on my face again

White clay smooth as winter

Crimson on my lower lip

Someone combs my hair back

Tight like centuries of rules

Pre-Chorus

And the sun climbs higher

Through the garden I can't walk in

And the master calls my name

But it isn't really mine

Chorus

Geisha of the floating world

Drifting on a painted tide

Days of tea and hollow grace

Nights when someone holds my pride

Geisha of the floating world

No one ever asks my name

I'm a ghost in silk and powder

Playing at a waiting game

Verse 2

Second cup of saké

While the warlords talk of war

My fingers find the shamisen

Plucking stories not my own

In the quarter after midnight

When the lanterns burn so low

I untie the silk from my hair

And let the girl I was come home

Pre-Chorus

But she's fading like a petal

On a branch that's lost its spring

And the woman in the mirror

Doesn't know me anymore

Chorus

Geisha of the floating world

Drifting on a painted tide

Days of tea and hollow grace

Nights when someone holds my pride

Geisha of the floating world

No one ever asks my name

I'm a ghost in silk and powder

Playing at a waiting game

Bridge

Mother sold me at eleven

To a house I'd never leave

Now these gardens are my prison

And these kimonos are my grief

I have danced for emperors

I have bowed to merchant kings

But I've never known a morning

Where my heart had [Chorus]

Geisha of the floating world

Drifting on a painted tide

I pour tea for men who own me

Smile until I'm dead inside

Geisha of the floating world

One more song before I fade

When the cherry blossoms scatter

Will you know the debt I've paid?

Outro: Spoken

The snow falls on Kyoto

And I am forty-three...

My geisha name is written

On a stone they'll never see...