<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (January 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (January 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> "It Was a Very Good Year" is a song Ervin Drake composed in 1961 for and originally recorded by Bob Shane with the Kingston Trio . It was subsequently made famous by Frank Sinatra's version in D minor, which won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male in 1966 . Gordon Jenkins was awarded Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist (s) for the Sinatra version . This single peaked at #28 on the U.S. pop chart and became Sinatra's first #1 single on the Easy Listening charts . That version can be found on Sinatra's 1965 album September of My Years, and was featured in The Sopranos season two opener, "Guy Walks into a Psychiatrist's Office ...". A live, stripped - down performance is included on his Sinatra at the Sands album . </P> <P> The song recounts the type of girls with whom the singer had relationships at various years in his life: when he was 17, "small - town girls on the village green"; at 21, "city girls who lived up the stair"; at 35, "blue - blooded girls of independent means". Each of these years he calls "very good". In the song's final verse, the singer reflects that he is older, and in the autumn of his years, and he thinks back on his entire life "as vintage wine". All of these romances were sweet to him, like a wine from a very good (i.e., vintage) year . </P>

Who wrote the lyrics to it was a very good year