From the recording The Women All Were Dancing
A song about a year. Pete Richards sings it. Bonnie LeClair provides the harmony.
Lyrics
If I had a time machine I’d jump on board and turn the key
dial it in to ‘59 and leave it there
Connie Francis and Brenda Lee would live on either side of me
we’d stack the records up and let the needle fall
Endless summer I wander off and get lost
in a neighborhood of blue swimming pools
Elvis Aaron Presley is serving time in the U. S. Army
He’s having fun, never fired a gun, all the wars are won
Luis Bonfa and Tom Jobim told Astrud and her friend Irene
we’ll be at Ipanema, come and meet us there
we’ll be bringing Gilberto, he’s got a song he wants to show you
a new beat that all the world will want to share
Here in Rio, at Carnaval, I ride a trio eletrico
and show my best moves
as all the parties I see you or someone who could be you
It’s all a whirl of beautiful girls in sequins and pearls
Charlie Parker’s ghost walks by, Thelonius is five by five
But they beat him with a blackjack when he refused to talk
I find a chair next to the stage and no one cares to ask my age
I step outside at daybreak, sleep in the park
Sing the blues for Lady Day and Lester Young
the life is over but the love lives on
on and on, life’s sweet song
If I had a time machine I’d zero in on the time between
the day we met and the day you left so suddenly
a perfect day beside the lake, a perfect tan and no mistakes
two guitars, a campfire and the Northern Lights
Hopeless dreamers wander off and get lost in the mystery
of what will be will be
endless seekers roam the earth till they find a good reason
to move along, they’re as good as gone, when nothing’s wrong
In ‘59
Nineteen-fifty-nine
in ‘59