Lush Life

(album: The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books - 1994)

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
Through jazz and cocktails

The girls there all 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 awhile that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me
But, oh 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 trough full of hearts would only be a bore

A week in Paris would 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 lifes are lonely too.