1955 Was a Very Good Year

1955 Was a Very Good Year By Elton Camp A better year in my life I have never seen Because, back then, I was only age fifteen Nobody I knew had, at that time, ever died Any problems of the world I could brush aside Nearly eight millions cars were sold in the USA And never before had they been styled that way Seven out of ten families owned a motor car So we ranged freely about, both near and far And yearly pay was nearly four thousand buck Inflation of one-fourth percent added to the luck Minimum wage to a dollar an hour had been raised And gas at twenty-three cents a gallon was praised Eleven thousand dollars was the cost of a new house About a new car at two thousand, nobody’d grouse Born that year were Whoppi Goldberg, Jobs & Gates Nobody would have expected their eventual fates Of the civil rights movement I was only vaguely aware Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, though, were there Elvis Presley was then the very latest singing rage And appealed to screaming girls of most any age James Dean in the movie, East of Eden, was the star But he died that year and so wasn’t able to go too far Finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill was Fats Domino Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and the Platters on the go I am not one of those old men who dotes to say “If only it were still like back in the good old day” Back in 1955, there many problems and great woe But not the concern of a fifties teenager, though