Written by Ervin Drake

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.