Written by: Ervin M. Drake
Arranged By: Gordon Jenkins – Quincy Jones & Billy
Byers
Album Title: Sinatra at the Sands with Count Basie
Orchestra
Label: Reprise – Reprise
Recorded: 4/22/65 – 1/26/66 to 2/1/66 (live in Las
Vegas)
------------------------------------------------------------------
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 lights on the
village green
When I was seventeen
<brief instrumental>
When I was twenty-one it was a
very good year
It was a very good year for city
girls who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair and
it came undone
When I was twenty-one
<brief instrumental>
Then 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
<brief instrumental>
But now the days grow 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, and
it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
<brief instrumental>
It was a mess of good years