"Summer Wages" is a superb song, despite its politically archaic sentiments in these supposedly enlightened times (smile). It's a superb song because it works so well in every way, and it's got a great tune. It has lyrics which are totally out of touch with the popular values of the present era, yes, but which call up a previous era which most of us can remember, and do so in an evocative way. I think it's one of the 3 or 4 best songs Ian Tyson ever wrote, and I've sung it pretty well all my life. It could hardly be any better. If you have to drag present day gender politics into it, you're simply wasting time on a pointless mental excercise in my opinion...one that may provide you with some kind of smug satisfaction, but which has no bearing on the relative merits of the song. To sing such a song is not to endorse some obsolete social sentiments, it is to recall a bygone era.

I once had a girlfriend who raised the roof over my singing "Frankie and Johnny", because it has violence in it...girlfriend shoots boyfriend down in jealous rage. So what????? It's a classic old song, a larger than life story, certainly not meant to be taken seriously according to present day social issues, but simply sung as a remembrance of a time and place long gone.

So there, Bert! (grin)