Talk:In the Summertime

'disturbing' lyrics

"If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal, "If her daddy's poor just do what you feel." I referred to these lyrics as "disturbing to many modern listeners." Deltabeignet removed this "unsourced bit." I put it back it, since there is ample support for it. E.g., [1] ("probably the defence's closing argument in many a southern rape trial"), [2] ("redneck mentality at its peak"), [3] ("politically incorrect"), [4] ("a little dodgy"), [5] ("Mungo Jerry has a lot to answer for!!!"), [6] ("WTF?! Sounds like the Duke lacrosse team's slogan."). (Note: I tried to use tinyurl to shorten all of the above, but Wikipedia apparently rejects all tinyurl URL's.) Krakatoa 19:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Those examples show it is disturbing, but I think the juxtaposition with non-modern listeners is wrong. I think "daddy's rich/daddy's poor" line was just as disturbing in 1970 and probably any time. The song has an "old time" feel to it, relative to contemporaneous music, but I don't think you can point to a time when it was not disturbing to take advantage of people because of their social standing. Throughout history and the modern day, the poor have been exploited in ways that rich people can prevent or retaliate against. The automobile is more recent part of history, and there definitely was a time where drunk driving was not well-recognized as a major concern. That may have changed before 1970 (I don't know), but again, the song looks back to an unspecified time in the past.

I distinctly remember the line as being "If her daddy's poor just do what "she" feels, which has an entirely different connotation, not disturbing at all. I just looked at the video on YouTube and although the Karaoke lyrics show "do what you feel" what Dorset is singing is more like "do what cha feels" which could be either "you" or "she". However, he is definitely singing "feels" which doesn't go with "you", it would be "feel". Also a number of the lyric site have the first line wrong - the karaoke and what Dorset is singing is "weather is high" and the lyric sites have it as "weather is hot" which doesn't follow the ryming scheme used. — ChardingLLNL 17:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to add that I've heard this song many times and have never thought of it that way. I always assumed that it meant the girl with the rich dad expects something expensive, while if her daddy's poor, you can take her on a walk in the park or something. Also, most of the link above are dead, and the ones that aren't are from forum pages and probably not the best source to use. If there are better sources on the controversy of this line, it perhaps deserves it's own section in the article.

I agree. I always thought of "what you feel" as implying being free of obligations. It never occurred to me to interpret it as meaning something nasty. Rape is not something that i feel like doing. (This, of course, does not mean that i'm not up for consentual sex.)
—überRegenbogen (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thirsty Merc - In the Summertime

This section of the article consists of a signicant amount of unsourced POV. Unless a source can be found I will delete the POV content (I may do this anyway, but it can be reinstated should a source be found). Tinkstar1985 05:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Words to the Bob Dylan song

Why? It is a completely different song, and is not relevant to this article.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 02:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)