Lush Life

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come what may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there
You could see where
They'd been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness!

I thought for a while
That your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me

Ah yes
I was wrong
Again I was wrong

Life is lonely
Again and only last year
Everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful
Again a troughful of hearts
Could only be a bore

A week in paris
Will ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it

I'll forget you
I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain

Romance
Is mush
Stifling those who strive

I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be
While I rot
With the rest
Of those whose lives are lonely too

[Written in 1949 by Billy Strayhorn, the noted Duke Ellington collaborator]