The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92735   Message #3703738
Posted By: Joe Offer
24-Apr-15 - 03:02 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Pay Me My Money Down
Subject: ADD Version: Pay Me the Money Down (Hugill)
Stan Hugill has this version in Shanties from the Seven Seas (1994 edition, page 370). Most of this is in the first Digital Tradition version, but Hugill has many more verses and a different chorus:


PAY ME THE MONEY DOWN

Your money young man is no object to me
Pay me the money down;
Oh, money down, oh, money down
Pay me the money down

I went for a cruise, boys, around the town...
I there met a gal called Sally Brown...

I put me arm around her waist,
Sez she, "Young man, yer in great haste."

"My price for love is half a crown,
An' money down, 'tis real money down."

Oh, the Yankee dollar some gits for their pay,
Will buy us rum, boys, for many a day.

A dollar a day is a white man's pay,
Stowin' cotton all the day.

Oh, if I had silver dollars galore,
I'd pack me bags and stay on shore.

I wisht I had ten thousand pound,
I'd sail this ol' world, around an' around.

I wisht I wuz Ol' Stormy's son,
I'd build a ship o' a thousan' ton.

We'd stay at the ports where we wuz in,
Drinkin' beer an' whisky an' gin.

When the ship it ties up an' the voyage is through,
I wants me pay, sir, every sou.

Hugill's source is "Harry Lauder."




Hugill also provides some verses from Harding:

The bumboatman he said to me,
'Bottles o' rum I don't give free.'

My fancy gal she said to me,
'I don't give me favours free.'

The Madam said to me one day,
'You've had yer fun so don't delay.'

The tailorman he said to me,
'Ye'll pay me 'fore ye leave for sea.'

The judge he said, 'Look 'ere you mug,
Ye'll pay yer fine or ye'll go to jug!'