Sunday, December 16, 2012

BIG AL'S JOVIAL JUKEBOX #9: "Summer Wages" by IAN TYSON, 1986



Albie's Note:  I first heard this "modern cowboy song" on the 1967 Ian And Sylvia album SO MUCH FOR DREAMING in the early '80s.  I liked it OK, but didn't think of it as more than an interesting stab at writing a modern "working-man" type of folk song.  Later, in about 1987 when I bought Ian Tyson's now-legendary solo outing COWBOYOGRAPHY-- where he had re-recorded the song the year before with subtle lyric changes and in a much more western arrangement-- I really came to appreciate what a fine piece of poetry it is. 

Hard to believe I have now loved this song for decades... but that's what the song's about in the firstplace: passage of time.  Not only did Tyson -- a real-life Canadian cattleman and musician-- write an authentic song as far as the northern itinerant workingman's peculiar reality, but he really composed a doggone great metaphoric lyric about life in general. The message? I think it's something like this: All of life is fleeting... and it will be gone before we know it... and "dealers" and "hookers" and "beer parlors" and false friends-- of one kind or another-- well, they're just plain everywhere, partner.

The moral? Make wise decisions, my friends.  And hold fast to things that are true.







SUMMER WAGES
(Ian Tyson)
Never hit 17 when you play against the dealer
For you know that the odds won't ride with you
And never leave your woman alone
With your friends around to steal her
She'll be gambled and gone like summer wages.

And we'll keep rollin' on 'til we get to Vancouver
And the lady that I love she's livin' there
It's been 6 long months and more since I've seen her
Maybe she's gambled and gone like summer wages.

In all the Beer Parlors all down 'long Main Street
The dreams of the season get all spilled down on the floor
'Bove the big stands of timber, waitin' there just for fallin'
The hookers standin'-- watchful and waitin'-- by the door.
Gonna work on the towboats with my slippery city shoes
Lord, I swore I would never do that again
Through the grey fog-bound straits where the cedars stand a-waitin'
I'll be far off and gone like summer wages.
In all the Beer Parlors all down 'long Main Street
The dreams of the season get all spilled down on the floor
'Bove the big stands of timber, waitin' there just for fallin'
The hookers waitin'-- watchful and standin'-- by the door.
Never hit 17 when you're playin' against the dealer
For you know that the odds won't ride with you
And never leave your woman alone
With friends around to steal her
She'll be gambled and gone like summer wages...
And the years are gambled and lost like summer wages.

Copyright Ian Tyson, Slick Fork Music-SOCAN
Recorded by Ian and Sylvia, So Much for Dreaming, 1967, Vanguard.
Also by Ian on Coyboyography, Stony Plain 1986




Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
- Proverbs 23:5

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
--James 4:14

PEACE

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