Love in a Fowl House

I haven’t been able to find a video of Love in a Fowl House but NZ Folksong  has the lyrics and the story of how Garner Wayne came to write the song:

Garner and his teenage daughter were out by the chook house one day in 1965 and the roosters were chasing the hens. She was feeling sad about a boy at school and he told his daughter that the chooks had problems too.

To cheer her up he started making chicken noises and “Love in a Fowlhouse” was born.

In a decade when some other Kiwi song-writers and poets were abandoning their children and then writing self-pitying lines about their unfulfilled lives, Wayne was listening to his daughter and was using humour to cheer her up and guide her.

Behind his funny clucking and rooster crows was good parental advice on what to look for in a partner. “Look for a boy who thinks you are nicer than any other girl, who loves youand wants to marry you, who will support you and stay with you for life, and raise a family with you.”

A modern Ms may not need the support you in the financial sense as her mother or grandmother did, but is support in its wider sense and the other criteria any less relevant now than they were in 1963?