When Will Pale Be Loved?

Breaking news, film at eleven, but life ain’t fair. A guy my age can look like a sun-weathered old saddlebag and audition for a gig as the Marlboro Man. But a woman “of a certain age” who’s spent too much unprotected time in the sun in pursuit of that ‘healthy tan’ just looks older than she’d like to. Let's hope that our society’s conceptions of beauty are slowly changing-- back to what they were in the 19th Century and before when a suntan was distinctly “lower class”-- and some day soon no young woman will think she has to alter her natural skin tone to be considered pretty.


I’ll sign off with some new lyrics to Linda Ronstadt’s rendition of The Everly Brothers song “When Will I Be Loved”…



I've been treated
When skin heated
When will pale be loved


I've been put down
I've been ‘fused rounds
When will pale be loved


When I spy a new tan
That is one land mine
C always breaks my heart in two
It happens every time


I've been Code Blue
I've been fried too
When will pale be loved


When you have a new scan
That don’t look so fine
C always breaks your heart in two
It happens every time


Oh, I've been treated
When skin heated
When will pale be loved
When will pale be loved
Tell me, when will pale be loved