“Summer Wages” was written by the Canadian songwriter Ian Tyson, who recorded it in 1967 with his partner Sylvia as the duo Ian and Sylvia. It is a song of the working West, drawn from Tyson’s own years of ranch and rodeo life.
The lyric follows a drifting laborer who gambles away his summer wages and reflects on a woman he left behind, measuring his choices against the loneliness they brought. It is a quiet, rueful song about chances let slip.
The song reached bluegrass audiences largely through J.D. Crowe and the New South, who included it on their 1975 Rounder album, an influential record in progressive bluegrass.
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