It Was a Very Good Year

When I was seventeen, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for small town girls and soft summer nights.

We'd hide from the light on the village green when I was seventeen.

When I was twenty-one, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for city

girls who lived up the stairs

With perfume hair that came undone

when I was twenty-one.

When I was thirty-five, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for blue-blooded

girls of independent means.

We'd ride in limousines. Their chauffeurs

would drive when I was thirty-five.

But now the days are short, I'm in the

autumn of the year

and now I think of my life as vintage

wine from fine old kegs

From the brim to the dregs. It poured

sweet and clear. It was a very good year