Yesterday When I Was Young - Lena Horne, Gábor Szabó, Gary McFarland

Yesterday when I was young

the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue

I teased at life as if it were a foolish game

The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand,

I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day

And only now I see how the years ran away

Yesterday when I was young

So many drinking song were waiting to be sung,

So many wayward pleasures laid in store for me

and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out

I never stopped to think what life was all about

And every conversation I can now recall

Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all.

Yesterday the moon was blue

and every crazy day brought something new to do

I used my magic age as if it were a wand

and never saw the waste and emptiness beyond

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride

and every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died

the friends I made all seemed, somehow, to drift away

And only I am left on stage to end the play.

There are so many songs in me that won't be sung

I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue

The time has come for me to pay for yesterday

When I was young.