[Written in 1949 by Billy Strayhorn, the noted Duke Ellington collaborator]
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I used to visit all the very gay places
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Those come what may places
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Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
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To get the feel of life...
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From jazz and cocktails.
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The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
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With distant gay traces
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That used to be there you could see where they'd been washed away
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By too many through the day...
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Twelve o'clock tales.
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Then you came along with your siren of song
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To tempt me to madness!
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I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
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Of a great love for me.
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Ah yes! I was wrong...
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Again,
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I was wrong.
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Life is lonely again,
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And only last year everything seemed so sure.
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Now life is awful again,
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A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.
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A week in paris will ease the bite of it,
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All I care is to smile in spite of it.
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I'll forget you, I will
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While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
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Romance is mush,
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Stifling those who strive.
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I'll live a lush life in some small dive...
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And there I'll be, while I rot
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With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too..
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Lush Life
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Queen Latifah |