I've had the first three lines of this one knocking about for absolutely AGES. But whenever I found myself idly strumming the chords, I just couldn't work out a final pay-off line. 'Judgement day', 'toll to pay', 'time to pray'. All these options were tried and discarded. And then... well, it was so bloody obvious. The idea of 'Hell to pay' suggested some kind of Faustian pact, which meant all the other words fell into place super quickly. Funny how one line can unlock a whole song...

Musically, I wanted to get a 60s, beat music vibe going. All the guitar parts were played on my friend Fareed's gorgeous Custom Shop Telecaster through his Lazy J amp, both of which I'm babysitting at the moment, and through a trusty SM57. I don't know if that made it sound better than my normal setup, but I certainly felt cooler than usual playing it 😎

LYRICS

I call my baby on the seventh day
Tell her everything that I gotta say
I can’t keep looking the other way
When there’s hell to pay

I talked to the devil by the state highway
The devil told me everything'd be ok
I shoulda known better, shoulda run away
Now there’s hell to pay

Take my money
Take my pride
But don’t take the love
That is rightfully mine
I’m begging for deliverance
But it don’t make no difference this time

Right from the moment I signed my name
My run of bad luck, well it started to change
But I was saving up trouble for a sunny day
Now there's hell to pay

Take my money
Take my pride
But don’t take the love
That is rightfully mine
I’m begging for deliverance
But it don’t make no difference this time

And then one day an angel crossed my path
With wings of gold just like the sun
I hoped she'd save me from this fiery wrath
But it was always borrowed, now my time has come

I call my baby on the seventh day
Tell her pretty soon I'll be moving away
Where I'm bound? Well, I cannot say
‘Cause there's hell to pay

Oh there's
Hell to pay, hell to pay...
I'm sorry baby, but there's hell to pay

Hell To Pay

Half-British, half-Japanese, South London-based singer-songwriter and producer. Indie pop, rock and blues. Thank you for listening!

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