Charles Aznavour

I guess just about the hardest thing to do
When you're doing something like this
Is to find a new love song to sing
Because they're almost always about one of three things

Right, they're either the, ah, the guy meets the girl
Or the guy loses the girl or the guy gets the girl
Well I found this song and it isn't about any of those three things
This song is about two people
Who have already known each other for quite a while

So we're alone again tonight
I read a book, you watch the fight
A stifled yawn, a can of beer
What an enthralling atmosphere

And yet the sight of us this way
Helps me to say what I must say
It helps me to think a thought or two
To pass it right along to you
And just for starters you should know I think
You've let yourself go

Down through the years, each sage repeats
Grass never grows on busy streets
Which might explain that balding spot
Were you a thinker, which you're not

And where's that slender youth I knew
I fear he's grown an inch or two
Not up and down my joy and pride
But more precisely side to side

When at a party, now and then
You tell the same old jokes again
Or wear a lampshade for a hat
Who could be wittier than that?

With one too many you just might
Pick some unnecessary fight
Though in the morning with the sun
You can't remember what you've done
If there's regret, it doesn't show
You know, you've let yourself go

You never care the way you dress
You stay unshaven, you look a mess
The smallest thing is too much to do
I even hold the door for you

And every rose upon the shelf
Is one that I've supplied myself
It's not the same, I'm well aware
Yet I need to see them there
I don't know why I say it now, why I don't?

ⓒFRANCE MUSIC CORP
ⓒON BACKSTREET MUSIC

You've got to learn to show a happy face
Although you're full of misery
You mustn't show a trace of sadness
Never look for sympathy

You've got to learn although it's very hard
The way of pocketing your pride
Sometimes face humiliation
While you were burning up inside
Facing reality is often hard to do
When it seems happiness is gone

You've got to learn to hide your tears
And tell your heart life must go on

You've got to learn to leave the table
When love's no longer being served
To show everybody that you're able
To leave without saying a word

You've got to learn to hide your sorrow
And go on living as before
What good is thinking of tomorrow
Who knows what it may have in store

You've got to learn to be much stronger
At times your head should rule your heart

You've got to learn from hard experience
And listen to advice
And sometimes pay the price
And learn to live with a broken heart

You make me feel so young
You make me feel like spring has sprung
Every time I see you grin
I'm such a happy individual

The moment that you speak
I want to go and play hide-and-seek
I want to go and bounce the moon
Just like a toy balloon

You and I, are just like a couple of tots
Running across the meadow
Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

You make me feel so young
You make me feel there are songs to be sung
Bells to be rung, and a wonderful fling to be flung

And even when I'm old and gray
I'm gonna feel the way I do today
'Cause you make me feel so young

Yesterday when I was young
the taste of life was sweet like rain upon my tongue,
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
the way an evening breeze would tease a 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 years have run away

Yesterday when I was young
there were so many songs that waited to be sung,
So many wild pleasures that 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 and
I never stopped to think what life was all about,
and every conversation that I can recall
concerned itself with me, and nothing else at all.

Yesterday the moon was blue
and every crazy day brought something new to do,
and 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 so quickly, quickly died
the friends I made all seemed, somehow, to drift away
and only I am left on stage to end the play.

Yesterday when I was young
there were so many songs that waited to be sung,
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see,
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung
cause I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
And the time has come for me to pay for yesterday
When I was young.

My mum and I we live alone
A great apartment is our home
In Fairhome Towers
I have to keep me company
Two dogs, a cat, a parakeet
Some plants and flowers
I help my mother with the chores
I wash, she dries, I do the floors
We work together
I shop and cook and sow a bit
Though mum does too I must admit
I do it better
At night I work in a strange bar
Impersonating every star
I'm quite deceiving
The customers come in with doubt
And wonder what I'm all about
But leave believing
I do a very special show
Where I am nude from head to toe
After stripteasing
Each night the men look so surprised
I change my sex before their eyes
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man

At three o'clock or so I meet
With friends to have a bite to eat
And conversation
We love to empty out our hearts
With every subject from the arts
To liberation
We love to pull apart someone
And spread some gossip just for fun
Or start a rumor
We let our hair down, so to speak
And mock ourselves with tongue-in-cheek
And inside humor
So many times we have to pay
For having fun and being gay
It's not amusing
There's always those that spoil our games
By finding fault and calling names
Always accusing
They draw attention to themselves
At the expense of someone else
It's so confusing
Yet they make fun of how I talk
And imitate the way I walk
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man

My masquerade comes to an end
And I go home to bed again
Alone and friendless
I close my eyes, I think of him
I fantasize what might have been
My dreams are endless
We love each other but it seems
The love is only in my dreams
It's so one sided
But in this life I must confess
The search for love and happiness
Is unrequited
I ask myself what I have got
Of what I am and what I'm not
What have I given
The answers come from those who make
The rules that some of us must break
Just to keep living
I know my life is not a crime
I'm just a victim of my time
I stand defenseless
Nobody has the right to be
The judge of what is right for me
Tell me if you can
What make a man a man

Tell me if you can
Tell me if you can
Tell me if you can
What makes a man a man

Avec des mots etranges
Meles a notre amour
Avec le meme echange
Des joies qui nous entourent
Avec les yeux qui changent
De reflets nuit et jour
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi

Avoir le meme empire
Ou les memes malheurs
Echangeant des sourires
Ou confondant nos pleurs
Mais partageant le pire
Comme on fait du meilleur
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi

Meler nos idees
Nos deux coeurs, et nos voix, mon amour
Avoir un seul nom
Un seul sang, un seul toit pour toujours
Avec l'unique envie
D'avoir un seul destin
Et les memes folies
Dans ton coeur et le mien
Et traverser la vie
En se tenant la main
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi

Puisque mes jours
Depourvus de bonheur
Se delivrent
Et s'enivrent
A l'approche de ton coeur
Puisque l'amour
Est vivant de chaleur
Et qu'il crie sa joie
Je veux vivre avec toi

Avec des mots etranges
Meles a notre amour
Avec le meme echange
Des joies qui nous entourent
Avec les yeux qui changent
De reflets nuit et jour
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi

Avoir le meme empire
Ou les memes malheurs
Echangeant des sourires
Ou confondant nos pleurs
Mais partageant le pire
Comme on fait du meilleur
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi

Meler nos idees
Nos deux coeurs, et nos voix, mon amour
Avoir un seul nom
Un seul sang, un seul toit pour toujours
Avec l'unique envie
D'avoir un seul destin
Et les memes folies
Dans ton coeur et le mien
Et traverser la vie
En se tenant la main
Vivre je veux vivre avec toi