Yesterday When I Was Young

Music and original French lyrics written by Charles Aznavour. English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer.

Released 1970 on the album Something.
Live recordings have been released on the albums:

Live In Japan 1974
Live In Japan 1977
The Birthday Concert

This song had originally been released 1964 in French as "Hier Encore" by the French composer, singer, actor and entertainer Charles Aznavour on his LP "Charles Aznavour - Que c'est triste Venise". 1968 it was again on his LP "Face au public". 1969 he received the Vermeil medal of the town of Paris for this song and also an American composers price, because the song had been translated into English meanwhile. The English title "Yesterday When I Was Young" 1969 reached position number nine in the country charts, performed by Roy Clark.

Charles Aznavour is born in Paris 1924 as Chahnour Varenagh Aznavourian. His family came from Armenia. The father sometimes worked as singer, and the mother as actress. By this he had his stage and screen debut at age nine. He has a raspy voice because of a paralyzed vocal cord, but in part with the help of Edith Piaf, he found his style and overcame his fears. He wrote songs, some of which were performed by Edit Piaf then. Almost all of Aznavour's compositions deal with love and have first been considered tame, but at the end of the 1950's came his breakthrough, and his songs and his limited but very expressive singing style became popular. Charles Aznavour is renowned the world over until today for his songs and his singing, and he's even something like the "quintessential French pop-culture icon".

Herbert Kretzmer, who penned the English lyrics to this song, was born 1925 in South Africa. He began with journalism, but then wrote successful lyrics for songs of George Martin and others. He wrote book and lyrics for some musicals, but his biggest success came with the musical "Les Misérables" for which he was responsible for the lyrics.
 

Lyrics:

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 the day

And only now I see

How the years ran away

Yesterday

When I was young

So many lovely 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

Yesterday

When I was young

So many lovely 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

Yesterday

When I was young

So many lovely 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

Yesterday

When I was young

So many lovely songs

Were waiting to be sung

(transcribed by Roman <scribbler@gmx.net>)