Pay in Blood is the second song to appear here from Bob Dylan’s 2012 album Tempest after my previous entry Long and Wasted Years. I always loved this song as I do the whole first half of the Tempest album. Like much of Dylan’s 21st-century output, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym Jack Frost. Rolling Stone ranked Pay in Blood as the ninth best song of 2012 and placed it sixth on a 2020 list of “The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century“.
Dylan’s friend and fellow songwriter Elvis Costello recalled in an interview with The Guardian that Dylan had read him the lyrics at the West Coast Blues & Roots Festival in Fremantle, Australia where both men were performing in April 2011: “Dylan pulled out a narrow roll of paper from his jacket (‘not unlike a London bus ticket’), unfurled it and proceeded to recite a new song scrawled upon it, ‘Pay In Blood’. Each time the chorus line came around (‘I pay in blood, but not my own’) ‘it was delivered with a different flourish: a swashbuckler’s panache, a black comical riposte, held with a steady gaze, tossed away with a wicked laugh or a ghost of a smile‘”.
I wrote about my own interpretation of the song here, back in 2014:
A Wise Ol’ Man’s ‘Masters of War’
Dylan is using his voice in Pay in Blood to project a dialogue between four distinct protagonists in this protest song. The first half entails a fierce exchange between ‘slave’ and ‘slaveowner’ but then the song transfigures into a comparably merciless showdown between ‘soldier’ and ‘politician’. I’ve always considered it in some sense Dylan’s omniscient update of his own early period piece – Masters of War.
I was translating Pay in Blood into Spanish for a friend when I realised a clear division between the first four lines of the verse and the subsequent four. Then it became apparent to me which characters he was representing in each 4 line stanza. Also, his voice changes markedly and the instrumentals shift to reflect the alteration.
To demonstrate this dialogue exchange I have presented the lyrics below and segmented each 4 line stanza to highlight the distinction between characters. I should preface by adding that my interpretation of the ‘identity’ of the characters should not be regarded as literal givens rather it is a broad-brush hypothesis of how one might interpret the song. Also there does seem to be some conjecture over who says what particularly in the last 4 verses.
Each character seems to use biblical rhetoric throughout which gives this world-view showdown a timeless quality and spiritual substrate.
Pay in Blood
Well I’m grinding my life out, steady and sure
Nothing more wretched than what I must endure
I’m drenched in the light that shines from the sun
I could stone you to death for the wrongs that you done
– slave
Sooner or later you make a mistake,
I’ll put you in a chain that you never will break
Legs and arms and body and bone
I pay in blood, but not my own.
– slaveowner/master
Night after night, day after day
They strip your useless hopes away
The more I take, the more I give
The more I die, the more I live
– slave
I got something in my pocket make your eyeballs swim
I got dogs could tear you limb from limb
I’m circlin’ around the Southern Zone
I pay in blood, but not my own.
-slaveowner/master
Low cards are what I’ve got
I’ll play this hand whether I like it or not
I’m sworn to uphold the laws of God
You can put me out in front of a firing squad
– soldier (the soldier is being court-martialed?)
I’ve been out and around with the rowdy men
Just like you my handsome friend
My head’s so hard, must be made of stone
I pay in blood, but not my own.
– politician
Another politician pumpin’ out the piss
Another ragged beggar blowin’ you a kiss
You’ve got the same eyes that your mother does
If only you could prove who your father was
– soldier
Someone must’ve slipped a drug in your wine
You gulped it down and you crossed the line
Man can’t live by bread alone
I pay in blood, but not my own.
– politician
How I made it back home, nobody knows
Or how I survived so many blows
I’ve been through hell, what good did it do?
You bastard! I’m supposed to respect you?
– soldier
I’ll give you justice, I’ll fatten your purse
Show me your moral virtue first
Hear me holler and hear me moan
I pay in blood but not my own.
– politician
You pet your lover in the bed
Come here, I’ll break your lousy head
Our nation must be saved and freed
You’ve been accused of murder, how do you plead?
– soldier
This is how I spend my days
I came to bury, not to praise
I’ll drink my fill and sleep alone
I play in blood, but not my own.
– Politician
References:
1. Pay in Blood – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Excellent. Absolutely dead on Matt…..
Thanks Dylan. That means a lot you saying that man.
This song sounds intriguing. I’m most familiar with Dylan music from the ’60s until the first half of the ’70s. I “rediscovered” the maestro with his 2020 album “Rough and Rowdy Ways”, which I think is a true late-career gem. “Tempest” falls into the “in-between period” I don’t know well.
Hi Christian. Thanks for sharing a little bit about your history and musical appreciation of Bob Dylan. I admit I didn’t listen much to ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ when it came out, but I sure hope to in the near future. Cheers.
Dylan wasn’t exactly on my radar screen when “Rough and Rowdy Ways” came out. In fact, the one time I saw him back in Germany in the late ’80s together with Tom Petty, I was bitterly disappointed – largely because naively I had thought Zimmy essentially was going to replicate his “Before the Flood” live album – in other words, play some version of his greatest hits – and in a way you’d actually recognize the songs. Let’s just say this is not exactly how the evening panned out! 🙂
The other thing that first crossed my mind when it came to “Rough and Rowdy Ways” was, ‘do we really need a 17-minute song about the assassination of JFK? But once I started exploring the album, I really got into it and now believe it’s among the maestro’s best I’ve heard. Even his weathered vocals are a perfect match, IMHO!
I’ve had friends and work colleagues who saw Dylan live post 2000 in Australia and found themselves disappointed for reasons comparable to yours. I had been trading bootleg live recordings of Dylan for years so I went into it knowing what to expect and I wasn’t let down at all, on the contrary after 5 live appearances that I’d seen. One live appearance in Sydney holds a special place in my heart since it was the night before Dylan received his Oscar live in Sydney for ‘Things Have Changed’.
It was uncanny you mentioned ‘Before the Flood’ since that was the first music I owned of Dylan in my youth and I never looked back. I find many people have favourite Dylan decades, and that’s fine but I don’t. I love so much from each decade that I could never hold one up above the other. I really couldn’t. He is by far and away my favourite contemporary music artist and will always be. Other than family he and his art have always been my rock. I’m glad his recent output moved you so and you were able to find a rekindled fondness of his output. Your description about his ‘weathered vocal’s I could say the same re. his magnificent Sinatra album ‘Shadows in the Night’. That blew me away how he was able to pay tribute and uncover them and bring them into a new light of day. I still don’t have any clue how he did that.
This one sounds really good. As you know I’m not as versed on his newer material but this one, Roll On John, and my favorite Duquesne Whistle I know well…oh and Long and Wasted Years.
My two favourites from the record are Long and Wasted Years and Soon After Midnight. Like the rest of second half of the record, I’m not a big fan of Roll on John I’m afraid.
My only gripe with Pay in Blood is his voice. I understand he’s doing a to and fro dialogue piece, but the voice is just so grating to my ears.