Lush Life
Composer(s): Billy Strayhorn
First recording/First release by: Duke Ellington & His Orch. - 1948
Covered by multiple other artists



I, I used to visit all these very gay places
Those come what may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get a feel of life
From jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen grey faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there
You could see where they've been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales

Then suddenly you came along 
With a siren song
It tempts me to madness
I thought for a while that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness ...
Of a great love for me
But, I was wrong
I was wrong

Life is lonely again
And only last week, everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A trough full of hearts will probably be a bore, a bore

A week I might go to Paris 
At least a bite of it
All, all I want to do is laugh in spite of it

I'll forget you, I will
And yet you are still
Burning inside my brain
Romance is mush
And it stifles those who strive
Well I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And I, I'll be alright with the rest
All those whose lives are lonely too