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.