Joan Baez - Prison Trilogy lyrics

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

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

In the blackest cell on "A" Block
He hanged himself at dawn
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

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

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

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

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
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"

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