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.