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C Dm
I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens,
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for high school girls with clear-skinn smiles, who married young and then retired.
C Dm
The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth
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were spent on one more beautiful. At seventeen I learned the truth.
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And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces
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Desp'rately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone
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Who called to say 'Come dance with me' and murmured vague obscenities.
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It isn't all it seems at seventeen.
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A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs, whose name I never could pronounce,
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Said, 'Pity, please, the ones who serve; they only get what they deserve.
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The rich-relationed home-town queen marries into what she needs,
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A guarantee of company and haven for the elderly.'
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'Remember those who win the game lose the love they sought to gain
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In debentures of quality and dubious integrity.
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Their small town eyes will gape at you in dull surprise when payment due
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exceeds accounts received at seventeen.'
C Dm
To those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came
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and those whose name were never called when choosing sides for basketball,
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It was long ago and far away. The world was younger than today,
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and dreams were all they gave for free to ugly duckling girls like me.
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We all play the game, and when we dare to cheat ourselves at solitaire,
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Inventing lovers on the phone, repenting other lives unknown
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that call and say 'Come dance with me,' and murmur vague obscenities
Dm7 G7 C Cmaj7
at ugly girls like me, at seventeen.
_
ambChile
Written by Janis Ian 1973