로이 클락의 "Yesterday when I was young"
젊은 시절 좋아했던 컨츄리 뮤직(country music) 가수로 로이 클락(Roy Clark, 1933~)이 있습니다. 클락은 미국에서 인기 있던 버라이어티쇼 Hee Haw의 호스트로서도 유명했죠. 젊은 시절 미국에 체류할 때 가끔 이 쇼를 본 기억이 납니다. 아마 이 쇼를 통해 알게 된 것으로 기억하는데, 그가 부른 노래 중에 아직도 좋아하는 곡이 있습니다. "Yesterday when I was young"이란 노랩니다. 가사는 지난날을 후회하는 듯한 내용이지만 뭔가 가슴에 와닿는 느낌입니다. 그리고 클락의 기타 솜씨도 좋고 노래도 좋았던 것으로 기억합니다. 아래 가사를 따왔으니 관심 있는 분은 한번 살펴보기 바랍니다.
Seems the love I've known has always been
The most destructive kind
Guess that's why now I feel so old
Before my time.
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 to last 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 happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wild 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.
--- Instrumental ---
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...