Pay Me the Money Down [501-503] (369-371)

Stan Hugill got this halyard chantey from Harry Lauder of St. Lucia, with additional lines from Harding of Barbados. He thought it may have been a West Indian shore work-song taken to sea.

The earliest reference I find is in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, June 1858, which gives these lyrics to a pumping song:

Solo: Your Money young man is no object to me
Cho: Pay me the money down!
Solo: Half a crown's no great amount
Cho: Pay me the money down!
Solo & Cho: Money down, money down, pay me the money down!

LA Smith's work (1888) basically plagiarizes this source in her notes on the chantey in MUSIC OF THE WATERS. Harriette Wilbur also mentions the song in an issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 1918. It looks to me like a more well disguised plagiarizing of the preceding!

In sum then, there are basically two textual sources, only one with music notation though (Hugills).

Its also instructive to compare it to the well-known "Pay Me My Money Down," as collected by Lydia Parrish in the Georgia Sea Islands in 1942, which is surely a related work-song. Alan Lomaxs recording of the Sea Island singers in 1961 makes it sound something like the menhaden seining songs, in that, rather than working to the rhythm of the song, an extra beat or pause is added after every verse to allow for a grunt and a heave of some sort (they were loading logs onto a schooner by means of some sort of tackle). Lomaxs notes are vague, and the recording seems to be of folks conscious of Parrishs work and maybe even the popularized version of the song by the Weavers, so I wonder how authentic it really was. Heres a link to that historic recording:
http://mp3.rhapsody.com/georgia-sea-island-singers/southern-journey-vol-13-ea...

Some interesting side notes about the popularized versions of Pay Me that have gone around, first by the Weavers in 1957, then by the Kingston Trio and others, more recently by the Boss. First, these versions, with their rig-a-jig skiffle feel (The Kingston Trios version even projects a Jamaican mento rhythm) are not characteristic of typical work songs. Most obvious is the big REST they leave before the word pay in the refrain. It is filled by the guitars and such, which keep the rhythm. However, the a cappella work-song would need to show a clear rhythm (not syncopated and dance-like) with the voices alone, and the word Pay would most likely come right smack on the downbeat. I find it interesting, incidentally, that the majority of pop songs today, from Billie Jean to I Kissed a Girl, delay the voice in their first measure, allowing the instruments to sound first. By contrast, older songs tend to land right on the downbeat of the measure. The 2+4 backbeat feel of songs that emerged with R&B and so forth in the 20th century calls for the former sort of phrasing, while work-songs generally call for the latter. Second, while Seegers political consciousness may have resonated with the workers pay me plea, the chantey, at least, has largely a different slant to it: here the lady of the night is the one asking for the down-payment!

While the Sea Islands version has been widely performed, the present Caribbean chantey version does not get performed so much. I suspect that any versions one hears ultimately derive from Hugill's text. Ive done my best to both follow that but also create something new by adding a lot more different verses.

See the whole "Shanties from the Seven Seas" project, here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=58B55DD66F22060C

Category:

Music

Tags:

• pay
• me
• my
• money
• down
• the
• sea
• shanty
• chantey
• stevedore
• docker
• worksong
• caribbean
• african
• folk
• sailor
• hooker
• kingston
• sally
• brown

[philipsmovies]

Brilliant! Enjoyed it very much.

[hultonclint]

Thanks, it rove me out of my mind trying to synch up the parts. Live human beings that sing as a chorus in real time are much easier, ha

[Partyburner]

Videos like this one are usually referred to as "multitrack". You should add this to your video title as well as the tags or many people might miss it.