(Charles Aznavour / Herbert Kretzmer)

 

Spoken : Somehow, it seems the love I knew was always the most destructive kind

 

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 the candle flame

 

The thousand dreams I dreamed

The splendid things I planned

I always built to last on weak and shifting sand

I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day

And only now I see how the time ran away

 

Yesterday when I was young

So many lovely songs were waiting to be sung

So many wild pleasures lay in store for me

And so much pain my 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 that I can now recall

Concerned itself with me and nothing else at all

 

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride

And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died

The friends I made all somehow seemed to slip away

And only now I'm left alone to end the play, yeah

 

Oh, yesterday when I was young

So many, many songs were waiting to be sung

So many wild pleasures lay in store for me

And so much pain my eyes refused to see

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