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 perfumed 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, a very good, a very good year