KRETZMER, Herbert


I dreamed a dream

(based on the tekst of Alain BOUBLIL)

There was a time when men were kind

When their voices were soft

And their words inviting

There was a time when love was blind

And the world was a song

And the song was exciting

There was a time

Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high and life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then, I was young and unafraid

And dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hope apart

As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side

He filled my days with endless wonder

He took my childhood is his stride

But he was gone when autumn came

And still, I dream he'll come to me

That we will live the years together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I'm living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream

I dreamed


She

She may be the face I can't forget
A trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price
I have to pay

She may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day

She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven
Or a hell

She may be the mirror of my dream
A smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell

She who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No-one's allowed to see them
When they cry

She maybe the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I'll remember 'till
The day I die

She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the
Rough and rainy years

Me I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is she


Yesterday when I was young
(based on the text of Charles Aznavour)

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 g ame,

the way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I always built alas 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 drinking songs were waiting to be sung,

so many wayward 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.

Yesterday the moon was blue

and every crazy day brought something new to do.

I used my magic age as if itwere 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.

Empty chairs at empty tables

(based on the text of Alain BOUBLIL)

There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone

Here they talked of revolution

Here it was they lit the flame

Here they sang about tomorrow

And tomorrow never came

From the table in the corner

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

And I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

On this lonely barricade

At dawn

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and you are gone

There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

Phantom faces at the window

Phantom shadows on the floor

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more

Oh my friends, my friends

Don't ask me what your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will sing no more