Gold Digger / Music

• This is one of the methods of getting rich discussed in the ABBA song "Money Money Money".
• AC/DC: "Money Talks" is an inverse example, with a man seducing a woman he thinks is a Gold Digger.
• "Marry for Money" by Trace Adkins is a rare male example:
  I'm gonna marry for money
  I'll be so damn rich it ain't funny
  I'm gonna have me a trust fund, yacht club, hot tub piece of the pie
  Find me a sweet sugar mama
  With a whole lotta zeroes and commas
  I don't care if she loves me, she can even be ugly
  I'm gonna marry for money
• Bell Biv DeVoe's landmark single "Poison" was based off a real life example. Dr. Freeze, the writer and producer of the song, had written it about an ex-girlfriend who had taken advantage of him romantically and monetarily in the past. The song itself is a warning to be careful about who you kick game to, lest you end up with a leech for a girlfriend.
• Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" shows how this backfires when the singer discovers her gold-digging boyfriend cheating.
  Driving her around IN THE CAR THAT I BOUGHT YOU!
• "No Endz, No Skinz" by Big L. Every woman is out for a man's cash.
• The 1899 ballad "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" tells the story of a beautiful woman who married for money instead of love, and lived a sad and empty life as a result.
  'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life
  For youth cannot mate with age
  And her beauty was sold for an old man's gold
  She's a bird in a gilded cage
• "My Humps" by The Black Eyed Peas is about a woman who receives expensive gifts from men she doesn't know because they like her "assets". At first, she resists, but she gets used to it and starts exploiting her "attributes" more in order to get more gifts and attention.
• Garth Brooks's song "Digging For Gold" from In the Life of Chris Gaines. The subject of the song was only in the marriage until the millionaire lost his money in the stock market and she bailed out in the end, leaving him crying.
• "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", famously sung by Carol Channing in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Also performed by Marilyn Monroe in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; the famous dance number in which she sings it was also done by Madonna. Subverted in the Madonna example in the video. She plays a performer who is pursued by several rich men, but she'd rather be with the hot but poor handyman and make out with him in his pickup truck.
• Kevin Denney's "Cadillac Tears" is about a rich businessman who marries his new secretary, only for her to divorce him and extravagantly spend the settlement money.
• The female protagonist of the Eagles song "Lyin' Eyes" is a gold digger; she's treated more sympathetically than most examples, however, being depicted as being lonely and trapped in a loveless and unhappy marriage with a cold and distant man. The song nevertheless points out that she did bring it on herself and that she is stringing along at least two guys as a result.
• "Cold As Ice" by Foreigner:
  You're digging for gold, you're throwing away
  a fortune in feelings, but someday you'll pay.
• Good Charlotte's "Boys and Girls", continually claiming "Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money".
• Cee Lo Green's hit "Fuck You" is about a former girlfriend who left the narrator for a richer guy, and who he laments only wanted money. Despite his chorus's warnings, he kept asking for her back but she kept rejecting him for richer boyfriends.
  Chorus: Oh shit, she's a gold digger - Just thought you should know, nigga

  However, at the end of the music video, he gets sweet revenge when returning years later to show off that now he's rich and famous, while she's stuck working at the diner where her rejections took place. So much for her gold-digging.

• Gwen Guthrie's "Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent":
  Boy, your silky ways are sweet
  But you're only wastin' time if your pockets are empty
  I've got lots of love to give
  But I will have to avoid you if you're unemployed
• Mixed with Interspecies Romance in the German couplet "In einen Harung, jung und stramm". A flounder falls in love with a herring, but he objects to her body shape... until she swims into a golden 10 rubel piece.
• "Acapella" by Karmin is a Break-Up Song about a woman who dumps her boyfriend because he isn't rich enough.
  Mama always said, "Get a rich boyfriend. You don't need to love 'em, girl, you can pretend."
  You bet I totes believe her, yeah, every word she said.
  Thought he was gluten-free but all that I got was bread.
  Mama always said, "Nice Guys Finish Last. Beat him at his own game, honey, take the cash."
• "Do You Love Me" from KISS, with Paul Stanley asking if the person he's singing about really loves him or just loves the fame and celebrity that comes with being a rock star.
• "Juliet" by Lawson is about a woman who is one of these.
  Dollar signs and crimson hair/She will steal your soul
  Sets her sights on billionaires/All she wants is gold
  (...) Pulls you with her perfect smile/Pretty soon you're done
  One more sucker pays the price/Thinking you're the one
• "Loungin'" by LL Cool J features him trying to convince his ex-girlfriend to leave her Sugar Daddy and then mocking him once she leaves.
  You gotta try love, can't buy love
  If you play your hand, then it's bye bye love
• "Why Don't You Do Right?" by Joe McCoy, performed by many many (including Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit). "Why don't you do right like some other men do? Get out of here and get me some money too!" The later version used by Disney differs considerably from the original ("Weed Smoker's Dream"), which is full of very thinly veiled suggestions that women should become gold diggers (or possibly prostitutes). "Sitting on a million, sitting on it every day, can't make no money giving your stuff away, why don't you do now like the millionaires do? Put your stuff on the market, and make a million too." Some of the verses are even more blatant than the chorus.
• Tim McGraw's "It's a Business Doing Pleasure with You" is one from the male's perspective.
• "Material Girl" by Madonna is a satire on this trope (and on the general materialism of The '80s) with a twist at the end: "Experience has made me rich, and now they're after me."
• Bruno Mars's "Natalie". Although she's sort of this and sort of a con artist because she had no intention of staying with him after she got access to the money.
• Nickelback: In "Rockstar", the narrator describes wanting to be pursued by gold diggers. The song in general is about wanting to be a rock star for all the wrong reasons.
• The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get A Job?" deals with a guy whose girlfriend is a domineering one of these. Near the end of the song, it mentions another (female) friend whose boyfriend is also a gold-digger.
  I guess all his money, well it isn't enough
  To keep her bill collectors at bay
  I guess all his money, well it isn't enough
  Cause that girl's got expensive taste
• Charlie Parker's "Romance Without Finance" is another male example.
  Romance without finance just don't make sense
  Mama, mama, please give up that gold
  You so great and you so fine
  You ain't got no money you can't be mine
• The Pet Shop Boys song "Rent" seems to be about this and perhaps prostitution. The title sounds like an allusion to the term "rent boy", meaning "male prostitute", and the chorus is the words "I love you, you pay my rent" repeated over and over.
  You dress me up; I'm your puppet
  You buy me things; I love it
  You bring me food; I need it
  You give me love; I feel it

  The Carter USM cover of the same song tends to avoid this trope, putting more emphasis on singing about the love angle and emphasising the lyrics "Words mean so little, and money less / When you're lying next to me." It comes off as more about a poor guy in a relationship with a richer girlfriend/boyfriend rather than the relationship between a prostitute and his client or a downright Gold Digger.

• Also Proyecto Uno's song "La Interesada". Quite appropriate, since the song was a cover of "Money Talks".
• "High and Dry" from The Rolling Stones' Aftermath (Album) features a male example in the narrator, who laments that a woman dumped him after finding out "it was money I was after".
• "Daddy (You Oughta Get The Best For Me)" by Bob Troup; Sammy Kaye recorded the first hit version, but there are lots and lots of cover versions. The song is "'bout a gal named Daisy Mae" who sings that she wants such things as "a brand new car, champagne, caviar."
• Kanye West's "Gold Digger". Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It ironically interpolates "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles, which is about a Sugar Momma ("she give me money when I'm in need') but parodies the lyrics ("she take my money when I'm in need").
• "Everything She Wants" by Wham!, with George Michael singing as a husband who married a woman with an insatiable appetite for all the things she can get out of him.
• Amy Winehouse's "Fuck Me Pumps" is about women who go clubbing and specifically target wealthy men, especially footballers, with the goal of becoming trophy wives.
• "Just Because", a 1929 song that was later covered by scores of Country Music, polka, and Rockabilly singers (including Elvis Presley in his Sun Records days) has the narrator complain about one.
  You caused me to spend all my money
  You laughed and called me "old Santa Claus"
• The South African folk song "Old Johnnie Goggabie" is about a woman who wants fancy clothes who gets a marriage proposal from a rich guy named Johnnie Goggabie. While she finds his last name unappealing ("goggabie" means "bug" in Afrikaans and is pronounced "ho-HAW-bee" with a guttural H), she pragmatically decides to accept the proposal so she can live off his money.

---