Roy Clark – "Yesterday When I Was Young" (1969)

There are so many songs
In me that won’t be sung

When I was in high school, CBS was by far the most popular television network in the country, thanks in large part to rural-themed shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Green Acres.

CBS purged its primetime schedule of those sitcoms at the end of the 1970-71 television season.  It also cancelled Hee-Haw, the cornpone version of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that had replaced the oh-so-hip Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1969.

Hee-Haw co-hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark

But Hee-Haw had the last laugh.  After CBS axed the show (despite the fact that it was #16 in the Nielsen ratings), its producers syndicated the show and it aired for 22 more seasons.

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The co-host of Hee-Haw for all those years was Roy Clark, who died at age 85 earlier this week.

Clark was a virtuoso on the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle from an early age.  He won the National Banjo Championship when he was just 14, which earned him an invitation to appear on “The Grand Ole Opry.”

A very young Roy Clark

Clark regularly demonstrated his considerable musical skills on Her Haw.  He also showed off his natural comedic gifts and his very likable personality.

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Clark’s most memorable hit single was “Yesterday When I Was Young,” an English version of a song that was originally written and recorded by French singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour.

Clark performed “Yesterday When I Was Young” at Mickey Mantle’s funeral in 1995.  “Mickey and I were good buddies,” Clark later told an interviewer.  “He always talked about that song. One day we were playing golf, and he came up and said, ‘When I die, I want you to sing that song at my funeral. That’s my life.’ I shrugged it off. I said, ‘Naw, you don’t want that song.’ He said, ‘Yes, I do. Promise me.’ When he found out how sick he was, he called me up and said, ‘Remember: You promised.’”

Mickey Mantle in 1995,
shortly before his death

When I was young and thought I knew all the answers, I cringed whenever I heard “Yesterday When I Was Young.”  It’s a shameless tearjerker, as maudlin as any song ever written.

But it speaks the truth, boys and girls.  Mickey Mantle understood that, and so do I.

Click here to hear “Yesterday When I Was Young.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: