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Written for the 25th reunion of the Harvard College class of 1989. Music & Lyrics by Jeffrey Bernstein (ASCAP). Copyright © 2014 Corduroy Fifths Music Publishing (ASCAP).
BACK TO THE YAHD by Jeffrey Bernstein
Long ago in a place of ice and snow,
In a quaint set of years that began with the number nineteen,
The Eighties rose and fell and we all dressed like hell,
But we took from our Crimson sojourn all we could glean.
Come on back to a world that was less out of whack,
Before Facebook, before email, before iPod.
Nothing mod on the paths we formerly trod,
Back to Boston, back to Cambridge, back to Hahvahd Yahd.
CHORUS
We’re going back to the Yahd where life was less Hahd
Back to the Yahd, not the river, not the quad,
Back in the Yahd we’re all summa cum laud.
Come on back to the Yahd!
Since we left
We’re a little bit bereft
As we recall the heft of our deft undergraduate years
All that toil
On the sweet Cantabridgian soil
Fed by Elsie’s, the Tasty and Cafe Algiers
We love the Eighties, our cultural Euphrates,
But from here every year disappears in a general clump
The music’s got attack, whatever else it may lack,
And we approve when the synth pop groove makes us all jump.
CHORUS
We’re going back to the Yahd where life was less hahd,
Back to the Yahd not the river, not the quad,
Back in the Yahd we’re all summa cum laud.
Back to the Yahd and the Georgian brick facade,
Back to the Yahd, it’s not fah from Cape Cod,
Back to the Yahd, never mind the avant-gahd,
Just come back to the Yahd!
Pennypacker, Grays, Weld, Stoughton, Hollis, Thayer, Hurlbut, Canaday—
You want to be a player—Matthews has cache,
Holworthy, Wigglesworth, Straus, Greenough, Mower, Lionel and Mass
They’re all first class!
CHORUS
So come back to the Yahd where life was less hahd,
Back to the Yahd, not the river, not the quad,
Back in the Yahd, we’re all summa cum laud
So come Back to the Yahd, to that patch of sacred sod,
Back to the Yahd, and the Hahvahd cheering squad,
Back to the Yahd, give your college friends a nod.
- Genre
- Harvard