Everyone’s always different in the dark

An undated song by Peter Tranchell, for which no music survives. MS.Tranchell.4.135. The fact that it was a song is indicated by bar lines in one line - these are frequently found in Tranchell’s song lyrics as an aide memoire for performance.

Noel Coward once made the odd remark
That people are all the same in the dark.
Such a barefaced lie only goes to show
He either doesn't care or else he doesn’t know.

Everyone’s always different in the dark.
Try a lot of people & you’ll see
That difference of technique
& difference of physique
Which makes everyone as unique as can be.

Everyone’s somehow different in the dark.
Everyone’s individual even in bed.
Not one of them is the same
In psychology or form.
There’s a difference in their game
& the things that they perform.
Some have a sense of shame,
While some are too warm to reform.
Everyone’s madly different in the dark, I’ve said,
& it's not a mere distinction twixt the quick or dead.

Characteristic perfumes, the texture of the skin,
Interest in preliminaries, the pause for a glass of gin,
All these altering details make your loved one subtly strange
And even a simple kiss differs with each one you exchange.

One individual differs from time to time.
It’s often hard to tell who anyone is.
Is the body with whom you’re bedded
the same body to whom you’re wedded?
The questions you’d ask would make a lifelong quiz.

Everyone somehow gets depersonalised
& sheds all the traits of the person they have been.
Their character forms anew
Their body seems differently sized.
But remember that even you 
Have been somehow or other revised.
There’s nothing that you can do
& only the ill-advised are surprised.
So when we say people are different in the dark, we mean
That people in bed are not just a dreamy sex-machine.

Everyone’s always different in the dark, we claim.
And wouldn’t it be a bore in store - Oh Lor!
If everyone in the dark were the same.