YESTERDAY, WHEN I WAS YOUNG

Original French Text and Music by Charles Aznavour
English Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer

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 songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wayward pleasures lay 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, 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.