"When You Were Sweet Sixteen" is a popular song. It was written by James Thornton. The song was published in 1898. Its chorus:
- I love you as I never lov'd before,
- Since first I met you on the village green.
- Come to me, e'er my dream of love is o'er.
- I love you as I lov'd you
- When you were sweet, when you were sweet sixteen.
The song was inspired by Thornton's wife, Bonnie, when she asked her husband if he still loved her. Thornton replied, "I love you like I did when you were sweet sixteen."
The original sheet music attributed Bonnie Thornton, Raymon Moore, Helene Mora, and others as having sung the song with "great success"; however, the song has been recorded by many artists. One of the best-known versions of the song was made by Al Jolson in 1929. In 1938, it occurred in the movie Little Miss Broadway with a short solo by Shirley Temple. In 1946 it appeared in the film The Jolson Story, where Al Jolson was his own voice-double for actor Larry Parks. The song was changed to a different format and became the version that most people remember. The song was then recorded by Perry Como in 1947 and was a hit.
Famous quotes containing the words sweet and/or sixteen:
“Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained,
And prayed me oft forbearance; did it with
A pudency so rosy the sweet view on’t
Might well have warmed old Saturn; that I thought her
As chaste as unsunned snow.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“O but we talked at large before
The sixteen men were shot,
But who can talk of give and take,
What should be and what not
While those dead men are loitering there
To stir the boiling pot?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)