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

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 all that perfumed hair
and it 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

-Kingston Trio, 1961