Summer Wages

[Verse 1]
Never hit seventeen
When you play against the dealer
For you know
That the odds won't ride with you
Never leave your woman alone
When your friends are out to steal her
She'll be gambled and gone
Like summer wages

[Verse 2]
And we'll keep rollin' on
'Til we get to Vancouver
And the woman that I love
She's livin' there
And it's been six long months
And more since I've seen her
She may be gambled and gone
Like summer wages

[Chorus]
In all the beer parlors
All down around Main Street
The dreams of the season
Get all spilled down on the floor
And the big stands of timber
Waitin' there just for fallin'
And the hookers waitin' watchfully
Standin' by the door

[Verse 3]
So I work on them old towboats
With my slippery city shoes
Which I swore
I would never do again
In the gray fogbound straits
Where the cedars stand watchin'
I'll be far-off and gone
Like summer wages

[Instrumental Break]

[Chorus]
In all the beer parlors
All down around Main Street
The dreams of the season
Get all spilled down on the floor
And the big stands of timber
Waitin' there just for fallin'
And the hookers waitin' watchfully
Standin' by the door

[Verse 4]
Never hit seventeen
When you play against the dealer
For you know
That the odds won't ride with you
Never leave your woman alone
When your friends are out to steal her
She'll be gambled and gone
Like summer wages

[Outro]
Years are gambled and gone
Like summer wages