Entertainment For Lively Minds
Go Directly to Jail - do not pass Go
Posted by Brianr on 17 September 2009 - 12:57pm.
I put this under the Rolf v Adam Ant thread below but on second thoughts it deserves its own space
Adam Ant Alone In His Padded Cell
Birmingham Six - the Pogues
Borstal Breakout - Sham 69
Caught By The Fuzz - Supergrass
are my top three jail songs - over to you for better or worse
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The Green, Green Grass Of Home
Is mine
Best ever jail song...
Has got to be Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos by Public Enemy...
Hangman
from ' Jugula ' by Roy Harper is pretty damn good. How about best staying out of jail song ? It's got ot be the Grateful Dead with Friend Of The Devil, surely.
Staying out of jail
would be Deceives The Eye by Madness (I presume they let him off?)
Wasn't "Shut Up"
about prison, too? And Tomorrow's Just Another Day, for that matter?
Toos and the Maytals
"54-46 Was My Number" gets my vote - played in just the other day in fact.
Good Call
You aren't the Stephen G Captain of Liverpool are you? If you were you should be sticking to staying out of jail songs !!!
Different perspectives
1) Morrissey - I've Changed My Plea To Guilty
2) Asian Dub Foundation - Free Satpal Ram
Babbacombe Lee (the man they couldn't hang)
A whole "concept" album by Fairport Convention, and not forgetting "The Transports" by the late Peter Bellamy
Steve Earle
has done a few, specialising in Death Row songs:
Billy Austin
Over Yonder (Jonathan's song)
Ellis Unit One
John Walker's Blues - is it a prison song? Certainly sung from the perspective of someone now in jail and how he got to be there.
Chuck Prophet's West Memphis Moon could be considered a jail song, but is perhaps more concerned with the injustice of the three innocent young men locked up.
John Prine - Christmas In Priison
Todd Snider - Tillamook County Jail
Long Black Veil - most famously by The Band, but others including Gillian Welch have performed it.
The Clash - Jail Guitar Doors
Ah - Chuck Prophet,
isn't Balinese Dancer a prison song,
Iv'e got a Balinese Dancer tattoed on my chest,
she's been my only companion since my arrest (or something).
Please consider for inclusion in the list
That's a Jimmie Rodgers song (the singing brakeman).
It's covered by the aforementioned Steve Earle (and the V-Roys) if I remember correctly.
Another jail song is (at least I think it's a jail song) "If I Could Only Fly" by Blaze Foley....covered by both Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.
The Auld Triangle
It takes all the glamour out of prison and leaves the repetition and the sense of a life draining away.
All along
the banks of
the Royal
...
Canal
new
And the auld triangle
went jingle jangle
Incarceration obsession
Tony Orlando. Tie A Yellow Ribbon talked of a man coming home from prison to see if his wife still loved him. What had he done? We never get to know - but given that his wife is more than happy to have him back, presumably his crime was not Glitter-esque.
Until you consider Knock Three Times. This only hints at incarceration, as the only method of communication between him and his possible love interest is banging on a pipe with a spoon. As prisons are not mixed-gender, certainly not in those days, I can only assume that Tony was on the prowl for romance of some sort with another inmate.
His lack of control here also hints heavily at being locked up for that very facet of his behaviour. It is therefore likely he was "bangin' his pipe" in the very real and reasonable hope that his interest will be reciprocated by a gentleman in a similar situation. In effect, a sex offenders' seranade. To think we used to dance to this in the living room when we were toddlers.
Hahahahahahaha......pish!
Hey girl what ya doin' down there
Dancin' alone every night while I live right above you
That bit was put in later
After Capitol bosses (quite rightly) saw the horror for what it was. Tony refused to change the words and they overdubbed those additional lyrics, sung by Neil Sadaka. On TOTP, Tony would have his back to the audience during that part to register his disgust at this tinkering.
Folsom Prison Blues
Can't believe no-one has mentioned Johnny Cash yet.
There's gonna be a jaibreak