| Paul and Silas in Jail | |
| Cover: | Phillips-PaulAndSilas.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Washington Phillips |
| Recorded: | Dallas, Texas, December 2, 1927 |
| Genre: | Gospel blues |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Frank B. Walker[1] |
"Paul and Silas in Jail" is a gospel blues song written by Washington Phillips (18801954), and recorded by him (vocals and zither) in 1927.[2]
The song is in strophic form, and consists of five quatrains in rhyming couplets. According to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul and Silas were in Philippi (a former city in present-day Greece), where they were arrested, flogged, and imprisoned for causing a public nuisance. The song relates what happened next, as recorded in Acts 16:25-31: