It Was a Very Good Year
original song written and composed by Ervin Drake; first recorded by The Kingston Trio
"It Was a Very Good Year" is a song composed by Ervin Drake in 1961 and originally recorded by Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio for their album Goin' Places. It was made famous by Frank Sinatra's version in D minor from his album September of my Years, which won the Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance at the 8th Annual Grammy Awards in 1966 and became Sinatra's first number one Adult Contemporary single, also peaking at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Gordon Jenkins won a Grammy Award for his arrangement for the orchestra, which he also conducted.
Description
The nostalgic and melancholic song recounts the type of girls with whom the narrator had relationships at various years in his life: when he was 17, "small-town girls ... on the village green"; at 21, "city girls who lived up the stair"; at 35, "blue-blooded girls of independent means". Each of these years he calls "very good". In the song's final verse, the singer reflects that he is older, and in the autumn of his years, and he thinks back on his entire life "as vintage wine". All of these romances were sweet to him, like wines from very good vintage years.
Composition
Ervin Drake composed the song in 1961 at the suggestion of record producer Artie Mogull, who told Drake that Bob Shane of The Kingston Trio needed a solo to include in the group's upcoming album Goin' Places.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “It Was a Very Good Year” is original song written and composed by Ervin Drake; first recorded by The Kingston Trio. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Very, Good and Year, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “original song written and composed by Ervin Drake; first recorded by The Kingston Trio” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2656308. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961 and 1966.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “It Was a Very Good Year” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.