At 17 Lyrics - Sitti Navarro

1 I learned the truth at seventeen_ That love was meant for beauty queens

2 And high school girls with clear skinned smiles who married young and then retired

3 The valentines I never knew, the friday nights, charades of youth

4 Were spent on one more beautiful_ At seventeen I learned the truth

5 And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces

6 Desp'ratly re[mained at home inventing lovers on the phone

7 Who called and say "come dance with me" and murmured vague obscenities

8 It isn't all it seems at seventeen

9 A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs, whose name I never could pronounce said

10 "Pity, please, the ones who serve, they only get what they deserve.

11 The rich relationed home-town queen marries into what she needs

12 A guarantee of company and haven for the elderly"

13 Remember those who win the game, lose the love they sought to gain

14 In debentures of quality and dubious integrity_

15 Their small town eyes will gape at you in dull surprise when payment due

16 Exceeds accounts received at seventeen

17 To those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came,

18 And those whose name were never called when choosing side at basketball

19 It was long ago and far away_ The world was younger than today

20 And dreams were all they gave for free to ugly duckling girls like me

21 We all play the game and when we dare to cheat ourselves at solitaire

22 Inventing lovers on the phone, repenting other lives unknown

23 That call and say "Come dance with me", and murmur vague obscenities

24 At ugly girls like me, at seventeen