Pay Me My Money Down

When times are hard the gov­’­ment choose,
Pay me my mon­ey down
Who will gain and who will lose,
Pay me my mon­ey down.

Pay me, pay me, pay me my mon­ey down
Pay me or go to jail
Pay me my mon­ey down.

The cor­po­ra­tions trade offshore,
Pay me my mon­ey down
They pay no tax so we pay more,
Pay me my mon­ey down.

The NHS is not for sale
Pay me my mon­ey down
We’ll fight those Tories tooth snd nail,
Pay me my mon­ey down.

Now they’ve deferred retire­ment age,
Pay me my mon­ey down
I earned my pen­sion with my wage,
Pay me my mon­ey down.

Ori­gin: This work song orig­i­nat­ed among the African Amer­i­can steve­dores (ie dock­work­ers) work­ing in the Geor­gia Sea Islands. It was col­lect­ed by Lydia Par­rish and pub­lished in her 1942 book, Slave Songs of the Geor­gia Sea Islands. The melody is much old­er and used in oth­er songs.

It was per­formed by The Weavers dur­ing their influ­en­tial 1955 Carnegie Hall con­certs, and was fur­ther pop­u­lar­ized by The Kingston Trio on tour start­ing in 1957. The song appeared on Bruce Spring­steen’s 2006 album, We Shall Over­come: The Seeger Ses­sions, a col­lec­tion of folk songs made pop­u­lar by Seeger.