"Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man" is the title of a song written by Kostas

Kostas

Kostas Lazarides is a Greek-born American country music songwriter, known professionally as Kostas. He has written for several country music artists, including Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, and Travis Tritt, and has won eleven awards from Broadcast Music Incorporated...

 and recorded by American country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer Travis Tritt

Travis Tritt

James Travis Tritt is an American country music singer from Marietta, Georgia. He signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1989, releasing seven studio albums and a greatest hits package for the label between then and 1999. In the 2000s, he released two albums on Columbia Records and one for the defunct...

. It was released in August 1992 as the first of five singles from his third studio album, T-R-O-U-B-L-E. The song became Tritt's tenth entry on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

) charts, where it peaked at #5.

Content

"Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man" is a moderate up-tempo whose lyrics centralize on a theme of economic injustice towards blue collar

Blue collar

Blue collar can refer to:*Blue-collar worker, a traditional designation of the working class*Blue-collar crime, the types of crimes typically associated with the working class*A census designation...

 workers.

The instrumentation features various forms of percussion from Sam Bacco, including crotales

Crotales

thumb|right|Crotales are often used with other mallet percussionCrotales , sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about 4 inches in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly...

, wobble board

Wobble board

The wobble board is an instrument popularized by the Australian musician and artist Rolf Harris and featured in his best-known song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport"...

, spoons

Spoon (musical instrument)

Spoons can be played as a makeshift percussion instrument, or more specifically, an idiophone related to the castanets. "Playing the spoons" originated in Ireland as "playing the bones," in which the convex sides of a pair of sheep rib bones were rattled in the same way.- Techniques :# A pair of...

 and a broom

Broom

A broom is a cleaning tool consisting of stiff fibers attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan....

. Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett (guitarist)

Richard Bennett is a touring sideman, session veteran, and record producer. As a touring sideman, he performed with Neil Diamond for 17 years, and Mark Knopfler since 1994. As a session player, he has worked with artists ranging from Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand to Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill...

 and Wendell Cox play guitar solos before the third verse, and Brooks & Dunn

Brooks & Dunn

Brooks & Dunn was an American country music duo consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who were both vocalists and songwriters. They were paired by record producer Tim DuBois in 1990. Before the duo's foundation, both members of the duo were solo recording artists...

, T. Graham Brown

T. Graham Brown

Anthony "T." Graham Brown is an American country music artist. Active since 1986, Brown has recorded a total of thirteen studio albums, and has charted more than twenty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts...

, George Jones

George Jones

George Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....

, Little Texas

Little Texas

Little Texas is an American country music band founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1988 by Tim Rushlow , Brady Seals , Del Gray , Porter Howell , Dwayne O'Brien , and Duane Propes . Signed to Warner Bros...

, Dana McVicker

Dana McVicker

Dana McVicker is an American country music artist. She recorded for Capitol Records Nashville in 1988, releasing a self-titled album and charting four singles on the U.S. country charts. McVicker was also nominated for Best New Female Artist at the 1988 Academy of Country Music awards, losing to...

, Tanya Tucker

Tanya Tucker

Tanya Denise Tucker is a female American country music artist who had her first hit, "Delta Dawn", in 1972 at the age of 13...

 and Porter Wagoner

Porter Wagoner

Porter Wayne Wagoner was a popular American country music singer known for his flashy Nudie and Manuel suits and blond pompadour. He introduced the young Dolly Parton near the beginning of her career on his long-running television show, and they were a well-known duet throughout the late 1960s and...

 all sing background vocals on the final chorus.

Critical reception

Teresa M. Walker, in her review for the Gainesville Sun, said that with the assistance from superstars on the final chorus, the song "should shoot up the charts." Dave Larsen of the Dayton Daily News cited it as one of the stronger tracks on the album, saying that the album "works best when Tritt sticks with the populist approach." Alanna Nash

Alanna Nash

Alanna Nash is an American journalist and biographer.Nash holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is the author of several acclaimed books...

 of Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

said of the song, "Tritt finds a solid image for his laborer's lament[…]But the melody is so slight that he resorts to an acoustic arrangement that evokes Jimmie Rodgers

Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)

James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...

 and the young Roy Acuff

Roy Acuff

Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...

." Deborah Evans Price, of Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

magazine gave the song a mixed review, saying that while the final chorus of song features famous country artists, it was too bad that the entire song isn't as strong as the last verse.

Music video

Jack Cole directed the song's music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

. In the book Country Music Culture: From Hard Times to Heaven, Curtis W. Ellison wrote that the song's music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 "confronted a litany of personal oppressions attributed to government policy" that coincided with Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

's presidential campaign.

Chart performance

"Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man" spent twenty weeks on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

) charts in 1992, peaking at #5. The song also reached #10 on the Canadian RPM

RPM (magazine)

RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...

Country Tracks charts.

Chart (1992)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks	5
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	10