Prison Trilogy (billy Rose)

Joan Baez

1. Billy Rose was a low rider, Billy Rose was a night fighter
   Billy knew trouble like the sound of his own name
   Busted on a drunken charge driving someone else's car
   The local midnight sheriffs claim to fame
   
2. In an Arizona jail there are some who tell the tale how
   Billy fought the sergeant for some milk that he demanded
   Knowing they'd remain the boss, knowing he would pay the cost
   They saw he was severely repremanded

R: In the blackest cell on "A" Block
   With a note stuck to the bunk head
   Don't mess with me, just take me home
   
   Come lay, help us lay young Billy down

3. Luna was a Mexican the law called an alien
   For coming across the border with a baby and a wife
   Though the clothes upon his back were wet still he thought
   That he could get some money and things to start a life
   
4. It hadn't been to very long when it seemed like everything went wrong
   They didn't even have the time to find themselves a home
   This foreigner, a brown-skin male thrown into a Texas jail
   It left the wife and baby quite alone

R: He eased the pain inside him
   With a needle in his arm
   But the dope just crucified him
   He died to no one's great alarm
   
   Come lay, help us lay young Luna down
   Were gonna raze, raze the prisons to the ground

5. Kilowatt was an aging con of 65 who stood a chance to stay alive
   And leave the joint and walk the streets again
   As the time he was to leave drew near he suffered all the joy and fear
   Of leaving 35 years in the pen
   
6. And on the day of his release he was approached by the police
   Who took him to te warden walking slowly by his side
   The warden said "You won't remain here but it seems a state retainer
   claims another 10 years of your life"

R: He stepped out in the Texas sunlight
   The cops all stood around
   Old Kilowatt ran 50 yards
   Then threw himself on the ground
   
   They may as well just laid the old man down
   And we're gonna raze, raze the prisons to the ground
   Help us raze the prisons to the ground