Florian,
I don't think the lyric change is a significant improvement. Nor does it hurt.
In the song, "the feelings that you lack" had been echoed by "the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back." He has always been talking about the relationship's mutual deterioration.
Nor do I agree that the original lyric was chauvinistic. He's singing about a personal relationship with unique feelings that once were there but are there no longer. The lyric should not be viewed as some sort of statement that it is inconceivable that any woman would fall out of love with him (unlike "For loving Me").
As for "For Loving Me," there has always been an element of sour grapes and bravado from the narrator. The message that "(I don't care, there's) a hundred more like you" is not the statement of a mature adult, but the statement of one who has distanced himself from true commitment. There are a lot of people like that (of both genders). I like the song because it tells the truth about a relationship, as viewed by a flawed observer, even if it also reveals a truth about a Gord long past that he would rather reinvent today. If Gord himself used to be truly like the narrator, he has done penance by being confronted today with the arrogance of his past. He should sing the song with the apology, "I used to be this way."
Now "in the hot sickly South" is another matter. That was always a bad choice. My revision would be "in the heart of the South." The words "of the" scan better on the eighth notes than the word "sickly," which is hard to sing and an awkward alliteration.
Future topic? Gord lyrics you would edit.
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