Lyrics Sweet 16 - Judy Garland, Victor Young and his Orchestra

Sweet 16

For fifteen years I’ve played a waiting game
I’ve suffered like they do in Russian plays
But if what’s in store is really what they claim
I must admit that suffering really pays
For fifteen years I’ve been just like a prisoner in a cell
For fifteen years my life has been just — awful
From one to four was such a bore I remember how I hated having all those people
paw all over me and talk baby talk, they’d say goo-goo, isn’t she cunning.
Poor dear, she has her father’s nose, ah-tic-a-tic-a-tic-a-tic-a-tic-a.
The years from five to eight I hate, I’ve grown into a very unattractive child
and consequently was utterly and completely ignored.
But I didn’t really mind,
I had a book of Mother Goose and Mother Goose is pretty hot stuff when you’re
five years old
At nine I had the measles so that didn’t count.
At ten I’d reached the
performing stage and at the drop of a hat mother would call me in and have me
sing The Rosary for her guests.
I never will forget how papa used to squirm
when I hit that high note
From eleven to thirteen I’d rather not speak of.
It was bad enough having Jimmy
Doogan pull my hair in school but it was positively humiliating to have my own
mother refer to me as her dear little ugly duckling
At fourteen I had my first taste of romance.
It was at a party at dancing
school and he was younger than I was, shorter than I was.
Oh but he had a
wonderful name — Archibold.
And he really like me too, he really did but I had
to go and spoil it all.
I asked him right out if he’d be my best beau.
That was the last I ever saw of him
By now I was fifteen and pretty miserable.
Mother refused to let me wear any
lipstick or rouge and I went around looking as pale as death.
It was then that
I decided to join the monastary.
And I would have too, if it hadn’t been for
Bing Crosby.
I was afraid they wouldn’thave any radios in monastaries.
So, I devoted my fifteenth year to Kraft cheese
But now it’s a different story, I can brush away the tears
And lau-augh at those awful fifteen years — For now I’m …
Sweet Sixteen and I’ve got my first long dress
I can even have a date one night a week
I can paint my lips a little and rouge my cheeks
I’m sweet sixteen but I really must confess
Although this grown up life isn’t simple
I wouldn’t change places with Shirley Temple
Gee it’s great to be just as free as the birds — above me
I’m a Juliet out to get a Romeo to love me
I ask you, please forget that I was an in-between
I mean my flags unfurled, I’m a woman of the world
I’m sweet sixteen…